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breathing ghostsWhat: Breathing Ghosts by Laekan Zea Kemp

Who: N/A

When: September 30th 2013

How: A copy of this novel was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 She is a winding cosmos, bleeding and bursting into night. She is a dream. She is dead.

River has just lost the one thing that matters most to him—Nia—and all she’s left behind is a pile of scribbled love notes detailing their past and a pin-holed map planning out their future. Hopes and dreams confined to one dimension now that she’s gone and River’s too afraid to leave his hometown, crippled by the same anxiety that’s plagued his mother for as long as he can remember.

But after a strange encounter with the only girl he ever loved a week after laying her to rest, River, armed with nothing but her map and his memories, decides to finally leave and never look back. And with the help of a pair of eccentrically named siblings as well as a mutt with three legs, he sets out to do the very thing Nia always knew how to do better than he ever could—live.

From the moonlit beaches off of Florida’s east coast, to the forests of Mississippi, to Bourbon Street, Cadillac Ranch, and the Arizona desert, River is faced with not only Nia’s ghost but his own and he learns that in life there are no accidents, only miracles.

3cats2Breathing Ghosts tells the story of River: a young boy who has lost the love of his life, Nia. Nia always wanted to travel across America, and see weird things. So River decides to do the road trip he was always to afraid to agree on. But without Nia.

Breathing Ghosts is centred around River and Nia’s relationship, but also River’s journey across America. To be completely honest, I wasn’t that big a fan of River. I thought he was selfish, for numerous reasons – many which involved his two tagalongs on his road trip, Carter and June. The way he treated those two most of the time was at best civil. And the way he viewed his and Nia’s relationship was so vainglorious. He even mentions that he could never give June what she wanted because he could never love anyone as much as Nia.

Okay. I understand how wonderful people can be. And Nia was pretty great. But she wasn’t God. She wasn’t some perfect human being that no one could ever begin to be like. How could River know if he could give June what she wanted (as if he knew what she wanted anyway) if he wasn’t even willing to see her at all? River was so blinded by his obsessive love for Nia that he revered her in a way that was completely unhealthy.

I liked Carter and June more than I liked River. I think these two characters had so much more, well, character, than River. They were stronger; they were more open to possibilities. They were simply more.

River was so self consumed with his own pain that he was refusing to see the world beyond what he had with Nia. He was so self-absorbed in what he was feeling, it was as if no one else could even begin to understand what pain was like. I couldn’t stand this, to be honest. His sense of self importance was almost overbearing. June and Carter both knew what pain felt like (as most people alive do), and River’s almost blatant dismissal of anyone’s pain and hardships except his own was so incredibly egotistical. He was so blind to the world around him, and I felt like shaking him out of his depressed stupor. He needed to open his eyes and realise that life DOES go on; no matter how hard it may be. People die, and you live. It’s hard, but you have to deal with it, otherwise you might as well have died along with them.

I loved the places that the three of them visited, and the truly weird things they did, and people they met. Even though they were kind of unrealistic, I didn’t really find myself thinking that. I enjoyed reading of these things, and imagining someone having a road-trip as fantastic as the one River, Carter and June took part in.

The ending of Breathing Ghosts was left extremely open. I, for one, am not a fan of open endings. I don’t like investing my time in learning of and engaging with characters only to have no idea how their life turns out. Does River ever pull himself out of his depressed stupor? Does he realise that he needs to move on, and that maybe his relationship with Nia wasn’t as supreme as he thought it was? I would have liked to know what happened to all the characters in this book. I would have liked some kind of closure to their pain.

© 2014, Chiara @ Books for a Delicate Eternity. All rights reserved.

Your Turn: What are your feelings on open endings? Do you want everything to be tied up, or are you okay with making it up for yourself?

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Posted on: June 6, 2014 • By: Chiara

8 Responses to Review: Breathing Ghosts by Laekan Zea Kemp

  1. I’m sorry you didn’t love this book, Chiara! However, I’m quite intrigued by this book after having now read both the synopsis and your wonderful review. The cover is also quite pretty. However, I’m not a huge fan of open endings – I like things to be tied up and to know what happens…a bit like Hazel and An Impreial Affliction.

    • Chiara says:

      I liked it! The cover is gorgeous, and it’ definitely an intriguing contemporary read. Yeah, open endings always make me a bit sad because I want to know what happens! D: Yes, haha, I can totally understand her pain on that one.

  2. Breathing Ghosts is such a fantastic title for a book! But it sounds reeeeally angsty, and I hate angsty books (there’s enough of this in real life high schools, I don’t need more). I don’t mind open endings, really. Although Looking for Alaska gave me a massive book hangover and I couldn’t stop thinking about the ending :P

    • Chiara says:

      I know, right! I am in love with the title. It’s not high school angst, it’s more life pain angst.
      It takes a lot for me to be able to accept an open ending. I like to know the end of the story!

  3. Sounds like a really emotional book with a lot of pain, but it kind of sounds like River was completely fixated on himself and his problems. Lovely review Chiara!

  4. Jennifer says:

    I have no idea if I like or don’t like open endings to be honest. It depends of what I’m reading, or even watching. If it ends with the possibility of hope, then maybe. I prefer it when they leave me thinking not only of the main character but also the things s/he did and the twists it could have.

    This book sounds interesting even if River sounds a bit distasteful for me. I might try to read it if given the opportunity to see how his journey goes. Sometimes twisted characters like that are cool if done well.

    Great review :)

    • Chiara says:

      Usually I am not a fan of them, because I want to know what happens to the characters because of the events they went through in the book. But I can understand why contemporary novels are left open – because life is very open, I guess.

      His journey is a pretty big one, and I think h grows a bit, too. I’d love to know what you think!

      Thank you ^.^

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