Name: The Air You Breathe
ISBN: 9780735211001

Frances de Pontes Peebles

The story of an intense female friendship fueled by admiration and affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other.ther.

A Novel

The Air You Breathe

"[A] glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss... I read The Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.)." --NPR "Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga."--O, The Oprah Magazine "Enveloping...Peebles understands the shifting currents of female friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the book certain its heroine's voices must exist beyond the page." -People The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride--and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other. Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate. Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music. One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories. Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.

Sydney Robertson

This was a truly beautiful read. I haven’t read anything like this in awhile and I enjoyed every second of it. It took turns that I didn’t think I was going to and I was so invested in every character. I will be on the hunt for other books by this author!

Ana Couto

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles is such a wonderful book. It mainly centers around the friendship between two young girls who grow up on a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil, and it follows them as they grow and pursue their shared dream of becoming musicians. Everything about this book is simply beautiful: the writing, the character development, the complex relationships, the settings…and of course, as a Brazilian woman myself, I loved that it mostly takes place in my home country (I don’t usually find many books set in Brazil, so this book was particularly special to me). It’s a lovely novel—I highly, highly recommend it.

The Air You Breathe A Novel

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