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    How to Breathe Underwater
    How to Breathe Underwater
    How to Breathe Underwater
    Audiobook8 hours

    How to Breathe Underwater

    Written by Julie Orringer

    Narrated by Catherine Ho and Nicole Wood

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    A New York Times notable book and winner of The Northern California Book Award for Best Short Fiction, these nine brave, wise, and spellbinding stories make up this debut. In "When She is Old and I Am Famous" a young woman confronts the inscrutable power of her cousin's beauty. In "Note to Sixth-Grade Self" a band of popular girls exert their social power over an awkward outcast. In "Isabel Fish" fourteen-year-old Maddy learns to scuba dive in order to mend her family after a terrible accident. Alive with the victories, humiliations, and tragedies of youth, How to Breathe Underwater illuminates this powerful territory with striking grace and intelligence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 8, 2019
    ISBN9781980032366
    How to Breathe Underwater

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    Reviews for How to Breathe Underwater

    4/5

    210 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Pilgrims - Ella and Benjamin's Mom has cancer. There world has been shifting, changing for months. Now they are spending Thanksgiving in a house full of strangers. The adults talk softly, light incense, and cook a strictly vegetarian diet. The children are wild and frightening as savages. Ella's parents seem to be trying on a new way of being and now Ella and Ben are on their own.When She Is Old and I Am Famous - Two cousins have an unpleasant visit in Italy. One is an overweight painter, the other a conceited fashion model. They have hated each other their whole lives, and they still do, but they begin to understand each other.The Isabel Fish - It's been six months since the accident that killed Isabel, and almost drowned Maddy. Maddy has to live with her fear of water, her brother's sullen resentment (he was Isabel's boyfriend) and her parents' constant worry. Perhaps her SCUBA lessons and her science project with fighting fish will keep her busy until the guilt goes away.Note to Sixth Grade Self - Structured as the protagonist's instructions to her younger self, this story evokes in gut-twisting detail the anxieties, hopes, and enduring hurts of schoolyard bullying. The narrator's sixth grade experience is one of unending torment and rejection of her classmates that are only survived through a striving for excellence. The Smoothest Way Is Full of Stones - Two Jewish cousins reunite for the summer after one has reinvented herself as orthodox and the other's mother has suffered a miscarriage. The protagonist is still reeling from the death of her brother, and the sudden depression of her mother. Now she has been relegated to the orthodox community of her once cousin Erica, now Esther. She constantly pressured by her relations to become completely orthodox herself, but when a pornographic book is found, Esther suddenly stops preaching.Care - A young woman addicted to pills must baby sit her young niece for the day while her sister attends a conference. Though she doesn't want to use, she can't stop thinking about it and eventually succumbs to the temptation. While she is distracted by her high, her young niece wanders off.Stars of Motown Shining Bright - Melissa and Lucy are spending the night at Jack's house. Lucy can't wait to tell her best friend about hooking up with Jack but before she can, Melissa tells her that she is engaged to Jack and planning to elope with him this very night. Shocked, Lucy must deal with her feelings of rejection and jealousy if she is going to save Melissa from making the biggest mistake of her life.What We Save - Helena's mother is very sick with cancer. She has been sick for years. And now she is going on an odd vacation to Disney without her husband, and bringing Helena along. At Disney they are meeting one of Helena's mother's old boyfriends along with his wife and children. Helena doesn't know what her mother is doing, but she's scared.Stations of the Cross - A first communion party goes terrible wrong when a mixed race child is singled out for torment by the group. The narrator is the best friend of the instigator, and the only Jewish girl in town. She is terribly guilty about the treatment of the boy, but afraid to speak up lest in result in her own ostracism.
    • 5/5
      The book is a collection of short stories by Julie Orringer. I took a chance on a new author and I loved her work. The two that I really like are "When She is Old and I Am Famous" and "Note to Sixth-Grade Self." Along with "The Isabel Fish" and "The Smoothest Way Is Full of Stones," this book is the perfect sample of lives of people you probably know or meet in the future.
    • 3/5
      I love Julie Orringer's The Invisible Bridge and was looking forward to this book of nine precursor stories.Unfortunately, they feel overflowing and packed with human cruelty, death, cancer, sadness, and depression,with only vague or not at all redemptions.
    • 5/5
      How to Breathe Underwater, Julie OrringerThis, the first book written by Orringer, is an excellent collection of original short stories, concentrating mostly on the young and the difficulties they have coming of age as teens or young adults. The problems they face are unique and the way that they approach them determines an outcome that will probably haunt them in some way throughout the rest of their lives. The author seems to have entered the heads of her characters and their stories seem more real than fiction.Every story is rewarding, in some way. It is so refreshing today, to read a story that might contain sex, but is not about sex, that might have a foul word or two, but only if the words are there for a purpose rather than shock value. It is heartening to read about subjects that are not really political or biased or trapped in the PC culture of our modern times. Because it was written just over a decade and a half ago, there is no gender bias or confusion, little racism, and no hate for law enforcement. There is no call for resistance to the powers that be. There is racism, and there is cruelty, but it is managed well and with morality. It is not offensive. Best of all, politics does not invade every story with the author’s personal view. Each piece that the author has written imparts a value lesson which is largely absent in today’s literature and in today’s daily life with the proliferation of social media and the need for so many to have fifteen minutes of fame and to learn all in a sound bite. This book was written in a more peaceful, or perhaps a more stable time, yet the subject matter covered would not be described as peaceful. Most of the stories are dark, and some are depressing, but they all end with a bit of a hopeful outlook since they move on into a future that is somewhat successful. Problems are resolved either positively or negatively, but they are resolved in a palatable way. The readers are left with the task of thoughtfully ending each story for themselves. The unwed mother raises her child, the conflicted teen figures out the right thing to do to help a friend, courage overcomes weakness, the missing child turns up, devastating loss is coped with in ways that carry the characters forward, few actually die during the story (that largely occurs before or in our imaginations later on), but the idea of death is front and center in some stories, religious confusion and intolerance are worked through discretely, without causing resentment, really poor decisions are recognized and acted upon correctly before they go completely awry. The intuitive approach of the author is detailed and authentic. She knows her characters and their problems intimately. Her insight makes them feel like they are real and not made up out of whole cloth. Even the most bizarre or reckless of the stories has plausibility. They do not seem to be fiction, but rather more like mini memoirs. As the author touches children’s innate cruelty, people’s innate bigotry, teens innate jealousy, loss, illness, jealousy, anger, divorce, cruelty, kindness, and so much more in just a handful of stories, she analyzes the stuff of real life, the pain, the pleasure, the loss, the gain, the heartache, the frustration and the helplessness we all sometimes feel. Yet, in each story, there is a resolution that prevents catastrophe. In each story, no one is painted into a corner without an escape route, and most often, the escape route is chosen well.This book is well worth the read. Put it in on the nightstand and read one or two a night!
    • 4/5
      I wonder if there is any such thing as a book of short stories which is uplifting? I hear it's a much more difficult art form than novels, though not as challenging as poetry. 'How to Breathe Underwater' shows a masterful understanding on the responses a series of teenage girls have to the circumstances they are confronted with. Most beautiful is the access we have to their emotions and the impact it has on their decisions. Most of the stories are about small, though dramatic events. They're not happy stories, but clearly there is resilience and lessons learned and survival. I suspect a few of the tales will haunt me, popping up at odd times as, as often happens, Alice Munro's do. What I find interesting is that even though the style of writing feels like the author is much, much older than Julie Orringer, the actual stories are very fresh.
    • 4/5
      As I was reading this book, I kept thinking that I would rate this book a 3, but when I finished I realized that would not be fair. I loved these stories, usually in short stories you like some, dislike some, but in this book I liked them all. All young women, different ages, different life circumstances, but all facing challenges that they need to find their way through and without parental involvement. The first story, "Pilgrims" was chilling and gave off a Lord of the Flies type of vibe. "Isobel Fish" was one of my favorites and I expected something to happen that did not and I was glad. Her prose is natural. her storytelling and pacing is smooth and I have never read her novel, but if it is written with the same type of prose, I definitely will.
    • 5/5
      recommended for: short story fans and those who don't realize how good short stories can beCollection of lovely short stories about children and adolescents. Very dark themes. They brought up a lot of emotions for me. Long after reading this book, I found myself thinking of certain of the stories. Each story is complete; she really knows how to write short stories well.
    • 5/5
      I am not ordinarily an avid reader of short fiction. However, this collection is outstanding. I couldn't put it down. The stories are devastating, wry, and beautifully crafted. The protagonists--all women on the border between childhood and adolescence; between adolescence and young adulthood--experience (and inflict) violence, guilt, and isolation. They're occasionally blessed by small moments of grace. I found this collection deeply moving; I recognized myself and other women I've known within these stories, and found myself surprised into tears by several of them.
    • 5/5
      An impressive debut with nine emotionally engaging stories about adolescent American girls and young women, many involving Jewish backgrounds.My favourite, and it is difficult as they are all excellent, is The Isabel Fish, which tells, with skillful use of flashbacks, the relationship between a brother and sister after the sister escapes a car driven into a lake by the brother's girlfriend, who dies in the accident. The amount of story and emotion compressed into 30 pages is breathtaking.
    • 5/5
      I'm an instant fan. Brilliant writer.
    • 5/5
      OH MY GOD. She does all the things you aren't supposed to do in stories and her stories are so good because of it. Kill little children! It should happen more often. :)
    • 5/5
      I liked this book very much. All of the nine short stories contain an in depth study of teen age years and situations that occur, some of which impact us for a lifetime.Note to Sixth Grade Self is a superbly written tale of a young woman who simply doesn't fit in no matter how hard she tries. The Isabel Fish deals with the heavy subject of two young girls who took a fast ride in a car and one died, leaving the other with incredible guilt and remorse and a brother who cannot forgive her because she survived and his girlfriend died.Stations of the Cross also chronicles the sense of non belonging and the terrible things we do to fit in and buckle under peer pressure.While some of the stories were deeply disturbing, this is a book that many can relate to.
    • 4/5
      A collection of dark, tragic stories, yet not completely depressing. A good read. Overall, I liked probably half of the stories.
    • 4/5
      Lots of short stories. My wife made me read it because we have two girls and I think I learned something.