Breathing Lessons

By: Anne Tyler

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

Length: 12 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

Unfolding over the course of a single emotionally fraught day, this stunning novel encompasses a lifetime of dreams, regrets, and reckonings.  

Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials, and its triumphs - through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other's faults with patience and affection.  

Where Maggie is quirky, lovable, and mischievous, Ira is practical, methodical, and mired in reason.  

What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey, as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having somebody with whom to share the ride, bumps and all.

©1988 ATM, Inc. (P)2020 Recorded Books

A Tedious Optimistic Heroine

“Breathing Lessons” was a disappointing Anne Tyler reading excursion. The story and the people were extremely tedious and the entire books was more a downer than I was looking for. This read was in a different direction then the two previous Anne Tyler books I have recently read. I should have quit listening but I spent money for the book and felt I should endure to the end. More than likely this will be then end of my reading Anne Tyler and I will begin, again, my search for some light, well written upbeat leisure reading. Experienced as an Audio book.

One of Her Best

I have almost every single book of Tyler's in my Audible library and this one is one of my favorites. The narrator is excellent and Tyler's insight into human behavior is perfect. She has a talent for capturing what's under the Bandaids we apply to getting by amongst each other.

It was my timing I think.

Enjoying Delia’s spunk and growth in Tyler’s very good Ladder of Years, I went on to this book wanting more of Tyler’s calm, quirky commentary.

Unfortunately, this book was a bit too much the same without brave Delia.

Both women had contentious, rather supercilious husbands, and their escapes were too similar. I had to jump ship.

I well may have chosen the worse two books in a row, and I just didn’t like the narration.
Your s truly, Pissy Me in this case

it was okay

I have listened to two other books by Anne Tyler. The Redhead by the Side of the Road and The Vinegar Girl. I love them both so much! So I assumed I would love this book too. I love her style of writing. There were several places in this book where I laughed out loud. But, by the end of the book I was left wondering if I had wasted my time. The ending was just not very satisfying.

Just as expected! In a good way! Use the credit!

1st off let me say that Ms. Bresnahan was absolutely PERFECT for this book! She did this book all he Justice it deserved and I just know Anne Tyler HAS to be grateful how well her characters feelings were captured by this narrator! What’s great job…..
I waited almost a week to review this book and I’m glad I did. I think I’m going to continue this practice. I find it’s virtuously impossible for your opinions on a book to NOT change at all over the course of a week. For me and this book, I don’t think the rating changed much but the appreciation did. This isn’t my favorite book of Tyler’s, but it surely delivers. And it delivers maybe in the most personal way any of her others have that I’ve read. She really allows you relate in some ways to the main character and what she feels, and in others your left feeling like “hey your a little weird with that one, but hey, so am I, we all have our “things” and that’s what makes you my friend! I’m an open book, always have been, and so are Tyler’s characters. It’s all in the little things she lets us see! As a married man of 19yrs I felt myself wanting to escape with ira for a few cold beers at a few points, and there were also plenty of times I wanted to nudge the guy with my elbow and tell him to “wake and smell the coffee pal!…how could you not find a lot of your wife’s habits endearing!!?.”Regardless, this was just what I was looking for in taking this plunge. I couldn’t put it down. It will be the same for you as well. Another life-thought-provoking peek into an older couples days. Happy, taking each other for granted, and when they DO stop to smell the roses every once in awhile they realize how much they’ve loved and loved together. If her other work wasn’t so great I would’ve rated higher. This is a good book.

This novel has earned all the recognition ---

Anne Tyler has a craft, an art, a gift, whereby she can transcribe the musings from her heart and mind onto the page. She is a keen beholder of the human condition, and she stuffs each of her characters with an assortment of traits: some good, some bad, some praiseworthy, some annoying, and some destructive. No matter the amalgamation, it all manages to meld into believable, yet quirky characters, who are often stuck in circumstances of their own making, whether they want to admit it. Some of Tyler's characters learn from their mistakes, while others obliviously march-on through life without changing one bit.

Upon finishing the novel, it will be clear to the reader why “Breathing Lessons” has managed to win all the accolades it has earned.

I forced myself to keep going.

I found the reader’s voice to be whiny and the content to be sophomoric and dragged out. I pushed on to finish.

I didn’t feel I learned a thing except that I was disappointed in myself for continuing on to the end.

Depressing

This story was a long run on of dysfunctional events. The performance was ok a little whiny at times. However the story just meandered along.

Exactly Who NOT To Be!

A tiresome meddling older woman....ALWAYS Hoping life will be what she wants with NoClue of looking at reality. A.Besnahan saves the experience with her incredible voice.