"When we are young, we give ourselves completely. We allow our first friends or first lovers or first songs inside us, to become a part of our unformed being, without ever thinking of the consequences, or of their permanence within us. This is one of the beauties of youth, and one of its burdens."

A rapturous, heartbreaking book that captivated me as soon as I began. THE AIR YOU BREATHE is the story of Dor and Graca, two girls who forge a friendship on a sugar cane plantation in 1930s Brazil—one an orphan who works in the kitchen, the other the daughter of the new plantation owner that moves in. Theirs is a complicated friendship, a complex love as they explore life, music, and fame together.

I love books about intense friendships between women, and this one enthralled me. I had a lot of intense friendships when I was younger, but I also kept having to move due to being a military kid. Perhaps my love for these storylines is because I never saw these friendships age, though there are always pieces that stayed with me. It's funny that my closest friend now is the one I met my senior year of high school, the last time the military dictated where I lived.

Peebles' prose shines as she regales the reader about the birth of samba music in Lapa, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. The lyrical writing matches the heartbeat that music provides to the proceedings. The story is told through Dor, the quiet songwriter to Graca's attention-seeking singer. She provides a wistful, melancholy narrator looking back at her life as an old woman. Through her I learned so much about Brazilian history, samba music, and the range of forms that love can take. The end devastated.