A complex love story told with relatable flawed characters. I flew through the pages, desperate to see what would unfold next.

3.5 stars

I could not decide between whether to rate this three or four stars because I truly don't know how I feel about this book. It started off rather slow but the pace definitely picked up really quickly and I found myself flying through it.

I really liked the characters of Claude and Jeremiah and seeing them fall in love throughout the summer and going on adventures together.

One of my favourite things about 'Breathless' was how sex positive it was. Even though a lot of young adult books touch on the subject of sex and losing your virginity, I think that this book was so open and honest about sex and masturbation and having sex for the first time, which is something that I believe should be openly talked about in YA more often.

I definitely think that this book would've hit me a lot harder if I read it when I was 17/18, which is good as this book is aimed at that age. I think that my three star rating is not because the book is bad or average in anyway, but simply because I am no longer the age that this book is intended for.

After finishing 'Breathless', I felt a little lost after reading the ending even though I knew what was going to happen and I knew it was going to be an open ending but I still wanted more.

I definitely enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who loved Jennifer Niven's previous work or someone who wants a hopeful but kind of heart-breaking first love story.

Thank you to Penguin Random House Children's UK for providing me with an advance copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first book by Jennifer Niven so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.⁣
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What I got was a sweet coming of age love story, that was well written, but I just found kind of boring. Maybe that’s because it’s aimed at a more YA audience?⁣
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I think readers in their late teens would really enjoy this book, sadly it just wasn’t for me!

I’ve been a fan Jennifer Niven for years. She is one of the most beautiful YA authors and I just wish I could’ve read her work when I was younger. Breathless is really special. YA always makes me feel so nostalgic and at ease, even if the themes are dark or emotional. There’s just something really special about these stories. They resonate with us, even though our teenage years are long gone and that’s what I love most about YA. These stories take us back in time, which is very welcome at the moment.

Note - This book deals with some difficult topics - suicide, miscarriage, a child drowning, parental separation among others.

Claude feels like the floor has disappeared from under her when a few days before her high school graduation she learns that her parents are separating and she and her mother are going to spend their summer on a tiny island a long way away.

But during the summer she comes to learn a great deal, about the world and about herself.

This book really moved me. I am a lot older than many readers of this book are likely to be, so I have a different perspective. My husband and I separated when our daughter was 16. I felt the rawness of Claude’s emotions and experiences. It felt very honest to me, and reading the acknowledgements I found out it is based on the author’s own experiences.

I know many people really connected with All the Bright Places, but this book spoke more to me personally. Maybe it because several of the characters are writers and this resonated with me. It’s made me want to write again and for that I am very thankful

I am a big fan of Jennifer Niven and was really happy to be able to read an advanced copy of the book.
I think she is one of the best YA authors out there and her writing style is great.
I couldn't put the book down.

I read this book after reading quite a few dark, heavy and spooky reads and I hoped that this book would give me something light to read. I hadn’t realised that it was ‘young adult’ novel and I really loved the ‘coming of age’ element of this story.

If you are unaware, Breathless follows Claudine Henry’s final summer before moving to college. But instead of spending this time with her friends, she and her mother head off to a remote island off the Georgia coast. There, amidst the wild beauty of the place, she meets the free-spirited Jeremiah Crew. Their chemistry is immediate and irresistible, and even though they both know that whatever they have can only last the summer, maybe one summer is enough…

What I really loved about this book is the story about how Claudine goes from hating the little remote island to loving it. It gave me flashback to when I used to go to a little Welsh island for the weekends with my grandparents and absolutely hate it until I grew older and it became a place of sanctuary and quietness.

Claudine experiences the teenage dream of having a summer romance whilst staying on the island. This is where she meets the mysterious and island-hottie, Jeremiah Crew, who will make her experience on the island one she won’t forget. I also love the part that Jeremiah plays in the development of Claudine. We go from witnessing a very torn, emotionally distressed young girl to a girl comfortable in who she is and what she wants to be.

Overall, I enjoyed it as it provided me with the getaway I needed (even if it was only fictional) but I feel like the ending was missing something...

DNF. I couldn't connect with this book at all and found it really hard to get into. I had high hopes for this, which is a shame.

I previously read “All The Bright Places” a few years ago and absolutely adored the plot and Niven’s writing style, which I also enjoyed in this novel. I really appreciated how open and honestly Niven addressed the topic of sex throughout this novel, however, the plot in general fell as little flat for me. None the less, I feel that this would be a really good reading for a YA audience.


Thank you to the author, Net Galley and the publisher for the advance copy to this book.

What’s it About? Just before graduation Claudine's Dad drops a bombshell: he's leaving. Her Mum takes herself and Claudine to a remote island to lick their wounds. The last place Claudine wants to be the summer before college. But then there's Jeremiah.

What I liked: This is the book I wish I'd read when I was 18, about a girl on the cusp of adulthood, determined to write her own story. It's clever and sensitive and intricate. It's relatable. It's sex positive. And oh that island. Take me there now, please.
What I liked Less: I wasn't so taken at first with the whole Claudine / Jeremiah thing, it felt a little too much too fast and then it felt a little predictable but they're minor niggles really because by the end of it all I was rooting so hard for the both of them.

The much anticipated new novel from international bestselling author Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places.
You were my first. Not just sex, although that was part of it, but the first to look past everything else into me. Some of the names and places have been changed, but the story is true. It’s all here because one day this will be the past, and I don’t want to forget what I went through, what I thought, what I felt, who I was. I don’t want to forget you. But most of all, I don’t want to forget me.
For her last summer before college, Claudine Henry and her mother head to a remote island off the Georgia coast. There, amidst the wild beauty of the place, she meets the free spirited Jeremiah Crew. Their chemistry is immediate and irresistible, and even though they both know that whatever they have can only last the summer, maybe one summer is enough . . .

I’m really torn with this one. On the one hand, it was always going to be had to top All the Bright Things, when it comes to books that resonated with me, but on the other, I really liked the basic premise of this.
I am a big supporter of YA books being sex positive, it’s so important for kids to know about consent and contraception and even more important for them to feel safe while exploring their sexuality so to have a book like Breathless where the MC and her friends actively discuss sex and understand consent etc was great to see. That being said, there were lots of moments here that were a bit convoluted and the plot point involving Claud’s parents and the island just didn’t gel with me. 7

I understand that this is semi-autobiographical so I don’t want to be too critical about the overall plot. Anyway, check it out.

I enjoyed Niven's 'All the Bright Places' when I read it several years ago, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to get into 'Breathless'. While I appreciated the book's candid attitude about sexuality and virginity, I just couldn't connect with the main character or the plot; her voice felt a little too young for me. For a teenager, though, this might be a very good read!

2.5/5

This book has highs and lows, which has left me feeling a bit undecided. I didn’t like the ending at all!

There were elements of the sorry line that were really profound and moving but others which fell very flat for me...

I wasn't sure I'd read the blurb correctly when I began reading the book as it wasn't what I expected, especially as Claudine seemed far too bland. In fact, it took me three tries to get past the first chapter.
She has an almost perfect life and we enter at the last few weeks of her final year of school when she's looking forward to a road trip with her best friend.
But slowly, subtly, the cracks appear. everything flips over and tumbles out. her wonderful father isn't so wonderful. Her home-life is paper-thin. Her un-nurturing mother becomes her rock. Her home shatters and she and her mum are thrust into the wilderness (almost literally) to create a new existence.
The beginning of the book, it's drabness, feels a little like the dull look of soil before the tendrils of new life emerge, tiny shoots struggling through the cloying thickness of mud to emerge into windy, rainy, fresh air to strengthen and grow.
Claudine leaves behind a false perfectness and discovers in herself, in others and in her relationships something better. Something true.

I absolutely adored this book. Niven so vividly captures the roller coaster of first love/holiday romance and I felt I was fully immersed in island life along with the inhabitants. I've already started recommending it to students I know will love it too!!

Though Breathless did not live up to Jennifer Niven's other work, it was still enjoyable. A very atmospheric read. Niven's writing is an immersion for the reader into the island. While the theme of divorce and the exploration around the social concept of virginity was super interesting to explore through the eyes of an 18 year old girl. I throughly enjoyed reading about Claudine's messy character and flaws.

I really enjoyed her two previous novels so I was very excited to pick this one up. However, it did let me down slightly.
I enjoyed aspects of this story, especially the island setting which was so inviting and vivid. However, overall I felt like there were too many undeveloped parts of the story. The characters (aside from Claude) all felt a bit one dimensional and I was waiting for further insight into everything. Claude herself was not a very nice person but I do think that was sort of the point. She was dealing with a lot but I struggled to connect with her.
Overall, I enjoyed the discussion around sex and virginity and I love that more YA novels are having that discussion. I think this book just needed more development and it could have been fantastic, but this may be a case of me being too old to really appreciate this properly. If I was a young teen, I would love this book. It read very similar to All The Bright Places.

Unfortunately, I had to DNF breathless. i’m soo disapointed because I had hogh expectations. i tried three times to read it but this really was not for me. I didn’t enjoyed the plot nor the characters.

A visceral coming-of-age tale, Breathless by Jennifer Niven is as raw and real, as hopeful and heart-breaking, as only first love can be.

Eighteen-year-old Claude Henry, commonly known as Claude, has got the summer before she leaves for college all worked out. Plans include losing her virginity to her number one crush, Wyatt Jones, and embarking on a road trip with her best friend, Saz. However, as parents often do, Claude’s throw a spanner in her summer plans, when they announce that they are separating.

Instead of road-tripping with her best friend, Claude finds herself accompanying her mother on a work trip to a remote island off the Georgia coast; an island so remote that the Wi-Fi doesn’t work and cell-phone service is almost non-existent. Nightmare! Claude thinks she might just about die of boredom, but then one day she meets Jeremiah Crew – Miah to his friends – and suddenly summer stuck on a remote island doesn’t seem so bad.

Sparks fly between Miah and Claude from their very first meeting. Their physical attraction cannot be denied, and their subsequent relationship, which goes from zero to zoom in record time, reflects this. Miah and Claude’s summer fling, it’s fair to say, is a sizzling hot romp when compared to the sweet slow-burn romances synonymous with many coming-of-age tales. No fading to black here, people.

Claude is consumed by thoughts of Miah; she’s distracted by him. He helps her forget about all the bad stuff that’s going on in her life - mainly that her dad seems to want out of their family unit. How do you deal with something like that? How do you come to terms with it? This is the summer when Claude grows up in more ways than one; it’s the summer she finds herself, loses herself in somebody else, comes to terms with her new reality, and looks to the future, a future without Miah because, though Claude loves Miah and the feeling is mutual, they both know that what they have can’t last. They have their own lives to lead; their own futures to build.

Breathless is bittersweet in the way that summer romances often are; burning bright under the summer sun and fading as the leaves turn golden-brown. It’s the natural order of things, and as such, Claude and Miah never really envisage a future together. Their time together on the island has a strict time-limit, making for a relationship that is intensely passionate and all-consuming. This passionate duo do make time for other things; adventuring and exploring, delving into Claude’s family history, and even finding time to hang out with some other friends, but these distractions eventually fade into the background, and in the end, all they see is each other.

Like all the very best summer romances, Jennifer Niven’s Breathless will sweep you off your feet and leave you wanting more. Honest, heartfelt, and sweetly seductive, this is a worthy addition to any ‘Summer Reads’ shelf.

I absolutely loved, loved, loved All The Bright Places so was very excited when I saw this new release from Jennifer Niven. Her writing style totally envelops you and makes you want to savor each page, so of course I wanted more.
Breathless is a bit different to ATBP as it does straight up feel like your stereotypical YA book. To be honest at the start I was rolling my eyes at the main character Claude, maybe even wanted to say shut up whining that's life.
But as the book went on it did win me over, again Niven's writing style just gathers you along with the story and you've no choice but to plod happily along.
The subject of coming of age and virginity as a social construct was dealt with very well and certainly made me sit back and think a little bit.
If I read this book 10 years ago, this would be a 5 star read. 30 year old me gives it a 3.5 rounded to a 4.