The Art of Not Breathing

The Art of Not Breathing is by debut author Sarah Alexander.

Since her twin brother, Eddie, drowned five years ago, sixteen-year-old Elsie Main has tried to remember what really happened that fateful day on the beach. One minute Eddie was there, and the next he was gone. Seventeen-year-old Tay McKenzie is a cute and mysterious boy that Elsie meets in her favorite boathouse hangout. When Tay introduces Elsie to the world of freediving, she vows to find the answers she seeks at the bottom of the sea.

The Breakdown:
1. Alexander's book is part mystery, and part coming to terms with grief which together make for a great read. She really does a great job of exploring how a death of child and sibling changes a family, and how each individual deals with the aftermath.  Even though the books takes places years after Eddie's death, the family is still raw from the loss, and really appears to avoiding dealing with it.

2.  I really liked the character of Elsie because in big part she was so wonderfully flawed.  She is not the perfect size two girl.  She has bad habits, avoids studying, smoking and shoplifting.  She really is the first to start coping with Eddie's death in her family.  She is dealing with her grief, her guilt, and is trying to put together the pieces of what exactly happened that day, and freediving is helping her to deal with all that.

3.  There are a lot of secrets to discover in this book. First, of course, what exactly happened the day Eddie died, where did her father disappear to, and who was her older brother Dillon looking for.  Then there is why Dillon does hates Tay so much. And what Elsie is hiding between her freediving, and Dillon's declining health.

4.  The books stays interesting between Elsie's life, and flashbacks to her memories of Eddie, and what happened the day he died. It kept me interested from beginning to end.

To Read or Not to Read:
Read