Review: The Art of Breathing by T.J. Klune
SYNOPSIS:
Tyson Thompson graduated high school at 16 and left the town of Seafare, Oregon, bound for what he assumed would be bigger and better things. He soon found out the real world has teeth, and he returns to the coast with four years of failure, addiction, and a diagnosis of panic disorder trailing behind him. His brother, Bear, and his brother’s husband, Otter, believe coming home is exactly what Tyson needs to find himself again. Surrounded by family in the Green Monstrosity, Tyson attempts to put the pieces of his broken life back together.
But shortly after he arrives home, Tyson comes face to face with inevitability in the form of his childhood friend and first love, Dominic Miller, who he hasn’t seen since the day he left Seafare. As their paths cross, old wounds reopen, new secrets are revealed, and Tyson discovers there is more to his own story than he was told all those years ago.
In a sea of familiar faces, new friends, and the memories of a mother’s devastating choice, Tyson will learn that in order to have any hope for a future, he must fight the ghosts of his past.
REVIEW:
This story was such a journey. Classic T.J. Klune emotion-telling, a love story that spans decades. Tyson is so very much like Bear but his journey is all his own as is all of his battles.
Tyson was such a delightfully complex character. Even as a child and through his progression into adulthood he is neurotic, brave, brilliant, and anxious…which he only seems to grow into the older he gets. But above all these quirks, is that Dominic is his. Or at least that was what Tyson thought. After Tyson graduates high school, his story begins to shift. There is a betrayal and great miscommunication and Tyson slowly loses himself.
After Tyson returns home, he starts to get his life back in order, or attempts to. He is still the brilliant ecoterrorist but he is wounded. He is crippled by his panic disorder and still yearning for Dominic. In terms of romance, lets just say that nothing comes easy for these two. As book smart as Tyson is, he is blind to love. And as strong and resilent as Dominic is, he crumbles to Tyson every time. At the end of the day, these two were such an angsty slow burn but so worth it when they finally came together.
I think my only grievance is I would have liked to actually see more of them together and communicating. There were a lot of secondary characters, including Tyson’s best friend (Kori/Corey), who kinda ate away at pages. In the second half of the story, I found myself occasionally feeling like we were back to Bear’s journey just now through Tyson’s eyes. And while Tyson does eventually find his way back to Dom and begins to get a handle on his panic disorder, I wanted to read more about them reconnecting.
LINKS:
Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
