Title: Breathe, Annie, Breathe
Series: Hundred Oaks #5
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication date: July 15th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
Synopsis
Annie hates running. No matter how far she jogs, she can’t escape the guilt that if she hadn’t broken up with Kyle, he might still be alive. So to honor his memory, she starts preparing for the marathon he intended to race.
But the training is even more grueling than Annie could have imagined. Despite her coaching, she’s at war with her body, her mind—and her heart. With every mile that athletic Jeremiah cheers her on, she grows more conflicted. She wants to run into his arms…and sprint in the opposite direction. For Annie, opening up to love again may be even more of a challenge than crossing the finish line.
“Breathe, Annie, Breathe is an emotional, heartfelt, and beautiful story about finding yourself after loss and learning to love. It gave me so many feels. Her best book yet.” — Jennifer Armentrout, New York Times bestselling author of Wait for You.
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ARC Review
The characters
Annie has lost the one person she was certain she would spend the rest of her life with, her boyfriend Kyle. He died on a car accident while helping someone. It was night and it was raining, he should have been home having dinner with his family but he was at Annie's house trying to get back together with her after they broke up. Annie believes it's her fault that Kyle died. If they hadn't broken up, he wouldn't have been at her house that night. Annie has to live with the guilt for the rest of her life. The first couple of months after Kyle's death, Annie was a wreck. She could barely sleep nor eat. Her life was meaningless until she thought of the perfect way to express her apology and honor his memory: to run the Country Music Marathon, the same marathon Kyle was supposed to run, but he never made it.
I strongly believe that the marathon gave Annie a purpose and the motivation she needed to keep moving on.. Her lifestyle dramatically changed for the better, of course.If it wasn't for the marathon, Annie would have ended up depressed or even worse. At least, the adrenaline and the pain made her forget about the emotional pain in her heart. She exercised every single day, ate a lot of food in order to have the power to run long distances, made new friends who never judged her but just listened to her and of course she met Jeremiah, who turned out to be the next best thing that happened to her after Kyle.
Jeremiah Brown is the brother of Annie's trainer for the marathon, Matt Brown who we all met and read his story in the third installment in the Hundred Oaks series, Things I Can't Forget. Jere is an adrenaline junkie. He wants to keep discovering and doing new things, which is okay but most of the things he does are extremely dangerous and are also the reason he has visited the hospital plenty of times in the past year. Now he works with his brother as a pacer, someone who encourages and runs alongside the people who are training for the marathon. His attraction to Annie is instant but she can't move on and be with someone new when she's responsible for Kyle's death.
Jere has dated plenty of girls, but after a few weeks he loses his interest in them and moves on to the next one. But with Annie, it's completely different. She's a mystery, a heartbroken mystery that he wants to solve and keep just for him as well. He knows that's still too early to make a move so just being her friend is more than enough for him. He understands that she needs time to mend her broken heart but can he really wait that long, is Annie broken forever?
Verdict
Breathe, Annie Breathe is an emotional, heartbreaking and bittersweet story about a girl who had everything she needed, lost it and she's on her way to gain it back, one step at a time because life is the biggest marathon we'll ever run...
Rating: 4.5 stars!!
Growing up in Tennessee, Miranda Kenneally dreamed of becoming an Atlanta Brave, a country singer (cliché!), or a UN interpreter. Instead she writes, and works for the State Department in Washington, D.C., where George W. Bush once used her shoulder as an armrest. Miranda loves Twitter, Star Trek and her husband.
Tour wide giveaway
Ends July 29th
-2x 50$ B&N Gift Card
-3x Signed copy of Breathe, Annie, Breathe
This sounds like such an emotional ride and I love how character driven this whole series is. It's part of why I love it so much. I can't wait to see what Annie has in store for me! Great review!
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