The Air He Breathes by Brittainy C. Cherry
♥ ♥ ♥ 4 STARS ♥ ♥ ♥
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“Sometimes the hardest part of existing without your loved one was remembering how to breathe.”
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I could not wait to read this book after seeing so many love it. I was hoping to feel the same, but I didn't fully love it as others. I did, however, enjoy it for the most part.
Elizabeth has had a very difficult year, to say the least. She lost her husband and has been trying to figure out how to cope with the grief. It's come to the point where she has to pull herself together for her five year old daughter's sake. So, she decides to go back to the small town where her life crumbled and live in the house she shared with her husband. This where she meets a strange and rude man who is actually her neighbour. His name is Tristan, and no matter what Elizabeth does to make this angry man a friend, he always has to act like a jerk. But, as days go on, it seems the share something in common. They are both struggling with the weight of their grief.
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“Her soul was scarred, and mine was burned.
But when we were together, the hurting hurt a little less. When we were together, the past wasn’t as painful to take in. When we were together, I never for a second felt alone.”
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Tristan has lost his wife and his son, and has not been able to recover since it happened. The only person who seems to understand what he is going through is Elizabeth. He finds he is able to breathe easier and smile for the first time in months with Elizabeth and her daughter Emma in his life. That connection they share quickly turns into a hunger for their past. They want what they lost, and so, they use each other to pretend it was never gone. But soon, it becomes so much more. The attraction grows along with their feelings, to the point where they just want to be with each other and not the ghosts of their past.
The story itself, I felt flowed really well, and the way the relationship developed was at a really good pace. I liked the characters for the most part. Elizabeth I felt tried so hard and didn't want to give up on moving on even if it was painful. I liked that even though she was going through so much that she was able to be selfless and help this man with moving on as well. She was kind with him, and helped him slowly come back to himself. Tristan was such a big jerk at first. But you can see him change slowly throughout the book. They were both broken and they both helped each other try to put all their pieces back together. I loved watching their relationship grow, although the pretend part of their relationship I didn't really care for. It was just too weird to me. Thankfully it didn't last too long.
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“Every second. Every minute. Every hour. Every day.”
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This book wasn't all sadness and tears, although I did feel and do that plenty of times while reading it. I was super happy to have some comic relief with my favourite character of the book, Faye, Elizabeth's best friend. She was blunt, hilarious, and just awesome. She had me laughing out loud many times. The writing was done really well, you could feel everything the characters were feeling. But near the end, I wasn't expecting things to turn so twisty. The first twist definitely got me and made things so much more interesting with a bit of angst. But the next one was so over the top. It was just so dramatic I didn't know if I was still reading the same book. The very end and epilogue however, left me very satisfied. I was very happy with how things concluded for them. Overall, it was a really great read. It wasn't perfect and I didn't completely love it, but there were many moments that were very enjoyable.
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