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Book Review of Just Breathe

Just Breathe
Just Breathe
Author: Susan Wiggs
Genres: Literature & Fiction, Romance
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
LaurieS avatar reviewed on + 504 more book reviews


When this book begins 20-something Sarah Moon is undergoing infertility treatments and her husband, a successful contractor, is getting on with his life after recovering from testicular cancer treatment. Sarah has nursed him through it all, putting her life on hold, and is just beginning to get back into the swing of things. She misses the intimacy they once shared but understands that he is still recovering. One afternoon, after going the insemination treatment alone (yet again), she surprises him with pizza at his jobsite and discovers he's been feeling fine enough to fool around with another woman.

Sarah calmly picks up a sledgehammer and knocks him a good one upside the head. While he's out cold and drooling she removes his remaining testicle with a box cutter and plops it in her purse for safe-keeping. Then she sits down in the comfy deep pile of the newly installed carpet, away from the trickle of blood so as not to sully her two-hundred dollar boots, to enjoy the pizza she no longer has to share and plots her future. Whoops, never mind, that was what I would have done. . . Instead Sarah puts the food down and says "I brought you a pizza and a coke with extra ice", hops in her vehicle and runs down a newly installed mailbox instead of her pig of a husband. Then she takes a road trip with her tail between her legs and moves in with her dad.

She sinks into a depression but it slowly begins to lift when she is given the keys to her auntie's peaceful cabin and she meets a young girl named Aurora who takes an interest in her artistic talents and just happens to have a hunky and very single step-dad whom she knew growing up. From here the book turns into a rather long-winded tale of rebuilding a life and finding true love despite the fact that she discovers she's pregnant with twins from the sperm injection.

This was a pleasant read, the characters were good people and the hero was charming though a bit too dreamy to be completely believable.