Review: Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally

SUMMARY FROM NETGALLEY.COM:

NOW IN PAPERBACK!
The finish line is only the beginning…
Annie hates running. No matter how far she jogs, she can’t escape the guilt that if she hadn’t broken up with Kyle, he might still be alive. So to honor his memory, she starts preparing for the marathon he intended to race.
But the training is even more grueling than Annie could have imagined. Despite her coaching, she’s at war with her body, her mind—and her heart. With every mile that athletic Jeremiah cheers her on, she grows more conflicted. She wants to run into his arms…and sprint in the opposite direction. For Annie, opening up to love again may be even more of a challenge than crossing the finish line.
"Breathe, Annie, Breathe is an emotional, heartfelt, and beautiful story about finding yourself after loss and learning to love. It gave me so many feels. Her best book yet." -- Jennifer L. Armentrout, New York Times bestselling author of Wait for You

MY TAKE:
I remember hearing some good things about this book and author, so I was curious to read this one for myself.

In Breathe, Annie, Breathe, Annie is trying to honor her boyfriend's memory by running a marathon that he had wanted to run. She's not very good at running, so with the encouragement of a teacher, she signs up for a training program. There she meets Jeremiah, who is very interested in her. Annie thinks she may feel the same, but is she ready to love, and possibly lose, someone again?

I thought the premise and the plot itself was very good. It's something that's not tackled often in YA and more often than not, the previous relationship is treated like it didn't mean much. In this book, there was an effort to both respect Annie and Kyle's relationship, as well as Annie and Jere's.

I was sort of on the fence about Annie and Jere. By that, I mean, in the beginning, I was all for them. Then, for some reason, when people around them kept trying to push them together, even though Kyle had passed away less than a year ago, and Annie herself had said she wasn't ready yet, that pissed me off and made a part of me want Annie and Jere's relationship to not work out. It's one thing to help someone recover and move on, but just because you feel that someone should move on doesn't mean you should push them. You're not living their life. You don't know how they're coping, and pushing them to move, most likely so you can feel better about yourself since they're not moping around anymore, is just plain disrespectful and selfish.

There were moments when I felt like Annie and Jere's relationship was just lust, especially in the beginning. However, there were also moments, especially when Annie was unsure of continuing the race that I felt that maybe they really do love each other. At the very least, Jere really did feel that way, because what he said is something that you can only say if you have the person's best interest at heart.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Fire for the e-copy.

THE GOOD:

1. As a non-runner, it was interesting to see what goes into training and running a marathon.
2. There was a conscious effort to respect Annie's past relationship.
3. The characters were complex. 

THE BAD:

1.  Some of the people in Annie's life meddle too much.

READ IT IF:

1. You feel like you can't move on from a relationship.
2. You're scared of falling in love again.
3. You're a runner. 

RATING:


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