Why "Breathing With Trees" needs a little more room to breathe
Blazing Reader,
In my last post, I shared what I liked about Donna Costa’s novel, Breathing With Trees. Today, I wanted to share what bothered me...
This is something that often bugs me about indie novels: The story rushes through — or outright skips — key emotional moments.
The prime example is the novel's climactic scene, when Lucy decides to get the HPV vaccine. The book builds towards this decision from page one. Yet when the moment actually arrives, sixty chapters in, it’s already over. All we get is this passive summary:
“After getting the needle, the nurse made us wait fifteen minutes to be sure no one had an allergic reaction.”
After getting the needle... What?! I was expecting a blow-by-blow chapter full of tension, doubt and resolve — not a four-word footnote.
The other letdown was Lucy's long-awaited first meeting with her father. I'll avoid any spoilers, but only say that the interaction with him was essentially a long info dump conversation in the living room that felt remarkably bizarre, considering he’s been absent from her entire life. It felt like a drawn-out family therapy session in which only one person is allowed to talk. Rather, this needed to be handled with far more emotional tension and back-and-forth dialogue, unfolding over multiple chapters.
Likewise, the grandmother's struggle with cervical cancer is wrapped up too quickly. (I did, however, think it brilliant of the author to have Lucy’s grandmother diagnosed with the very disease the HPV vaccine is claimed to prevent.)
From Lucy’s point of view, this remains a strong coming-of-age story about a young girl trying to discern how to make her way in a world full of erring humans and harmful propaganda. However, the story tries to cram too much inner and outer complexity into too few pages (with too much white space).
For example, I’d much rather have seen the father revealed at the very end of the novel, leaving his story and (slowly-unfolding) relationship with Lucy for a sequel. (That said, the father's identity made for an unexpected plot twist at the end, which was foreshadowed quite well.)
Despite these shortcuts with pacing, Donna Costa’s Breathing With Trees does a fantastic job portraying the inner struggle of a girl facing the real challenges of "informed consent" while dealing with the social pressures and biological upheavals of teenage life.
You can find out more or purchase a copy through my Blazing Book Shop.
In the end, Breathing With Trees delivers an urgently needed message about questioning authority from the well-developed point of view of a teenage girl... the plot, however, simply needs a little more breathing space. For those who prefer a faster clip, however, maybe Donna Costa's pacing will be perfect.
—John C.A. Manley
P.S. For part one of this book review, check out: A young adult novel about the freedom to make adult decisions
John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona, All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of philosophical fiction that are "so completely engaging that you find yourself alternately laughing, gasping, hanging on for dear life." Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber.
