Timely, heartwrenching, and all too real. A recommended first purchase for general fiction collections.

This was one of my most anticipated 2022 releases, and it delivered on all fronts. Breathtaking writing, achingly real characters, and a story that will stay with you. I will be this book's hype woman FOR FREE!!!

Very poetic and heartbreaking! I enjoyed the back and forth from his life in London as a teacher living with his mom and then his trip across America where he plans on killing himself. This is some bleak stuff but beautifully written.

The setting:

"On paper, Michael Kabongo seems to have it all. He’s a teacher, beloved by his students, popular with his coworkers, and the joy of his mother who emigrated from the Congo to the UK in search of a better life. But behind closed doors, he’s been struggling with living on the cusp of two identities and feeling the overwhelming sense that he can’t address the injustices he sees raging before him—from his relentless efforts to change the lives of his students for the better to his attempts to transcend the violence that marginalizes young Black men around the world. One day, after suffering a devastating loss and longing to escape the shadows in his mind, Michael decides to spontaneously pack up and go to America with the intention of living the life of his dreams until the money in his bank account runs out." [and end his life]

Struggles against racism, memories of his father's violent death, "...the weight of refugeehood, and an increasing sense of dread..."

Michael lives with his mother, Mami, a churchgoer who takes up with her pastor, Baptiste. [of course, he doesnt like him or church.]

Told alternately between London [first person] and his journey across America [third person] from the west coast--Los Angeles and San Francisco, to New York. Not two timelines per se, just jumping around--times and places, but no dates. [poetic license?]

Often much too heavy-handed for me and the "romantic" [well, not really] parts, totally unappealing/off the mark for me. e.g., "...fills him with the feeing of the flutter of a bird's wings against the brow of his heart." "Her heart is a lighthouse and he is a lost ship in the ocean."

But, some wonderful descriptions:

"He sits beside a man whose belly is struggling against the seatbelt."

"...wind colonized by bones..."

"Michael enters the store and is greeted by the per-hour smiling faces of the workers."

"His body stayed still; his soul sunk further into the chair."

"I watched as the room was swept with stillness; a stillness I found myself outside of."

And too much of the following:

"I want to die; yet I speak not as a man who wants to die, but as a man who wants to live, and dying is the only way I know how."

"...angry at everything outside of us; and at everything including ourselves." [so much like this!]

What I did like:
the parts with Jalil and his relationship with Michael, the description/situation of Jalil's relationship with his father--Baba, and his wanting to be with [not necessarily marry, his girlfriend Aminah, and not marry a woman from his home country. These brief sections were the most realistic/engaging.

Learned:
thobe, a men's garment/gown from the Arabian peninsula
kora, an African string instrument

I was not engaged/never connected. Cared not for many of the characters. Depressing [and depression] and dark. Repetitive.

J.J. Bola is a poet. I can see that in some passages, but way too much for me [particularly the end which does wax poetic [sorry!].

2.5 but not rounding up because to me a 3 means read--even if not a hearty recommendation.

Thank you for the advanced copy of this book! I will be posting my review on social media, to include Instagram, Amazon, Goodreads, and Instagram!

I never connected with either this book or its main character. It’s written in a disjointed style, with a back and forth between the past in London and the present day in America. Michael gives up his teaching job in London and decides to fly to America with his life savings. When it’s gone, he intends to kill himself.
It’s a depressing book. It’s beautifully written, as befits the author being a poet, but it’s just way too dark for me. The underlying sense of the book was a severe hopelessness. “Do you ever wish that you could die… but without all of the dying?” he says, “Like, not die, but just cease to exist, disappear, be invisible, every trace of your life, even the memories of you in other people’s hearts and minds, all gone.”
While I could understand what led to Michael’s despair, I couldn’t connect with him. I appreciated the scenes set in London and would have preferred a story that focused just on that side of things. In fact, there was one plot point I wish had been further fleshed out. I struggled to get through the American side of things. To be honest, the book frustrated me. It had potential, but I just didn’t feel it worked.
My thanks to Netgalley and Atria Books for an advance copy of this book.

I found this book confusing, yet boring at the same time. I was not interested in the main characters, but I did finish. It was not my favorite read this year.

I enjoyed this one. It's full of heartbreak but I think it was a good solid debut. I'm looking forward to reading the authors next book and see what they have in store. Thanks for the opportunity to read early!

A self-chosen and finite timer of available money to spend counts down the days left in a man’s life as he goes on one last adventure in JJ Bola’s The Selfless Act of Breathing.

A well-liked teacher in London, a dedicated friend, and a caring son, Michael tries to help those around him better their lives; but seeing the constant suffering and injustices persist takes a heavy toll on him. Struggling in life with mustering motivation to keep completing the expected daily tasks and interactions and feeling like more of an observer than a liver of life, Michael becomes resolved to spend the remainder of his meager funds while exploring the freedoms of America before ending his life. Leaving his home for San Francisco to begin his last journey, Michael’s adventure across America places life in a different perspective, both for himself and those he meets along the way.

Splitting the narrative in a disjointed manner between Michael’s time in America and his time at home leading up to his departure, the story slowly pieces together some of the discontent and losses that drive him toward his decision. The writing is descriptive and flows well, making it nearly effortless to become swept up in the emotional state conveyed from Michael’s current frame of mind and perspective on life, though it can be difficult to fully connect with him as there’s a distance from his innermost thoughts and motivations – those whys that are vital to both character and story. The way that secondary characters were brought in made it seem as if they and his relationship with them wasn’t worth expanding upon, which it would have been to develop out Michael’s character more deeply.

Overall, I’d give it a 3 out of 5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

For a book like one to work you have to feel something for the main character, some sort of understanding or recognition. Sadly I felt nothing, I did not connect with Michael and felt disconnected from journey. I never understood why he was traveling all over the United States, what he hoped to find or experience. I never understood the secondary characters we were introduced to like his best friend or mother and when they had huge events happen to them I did not understand what they were supposed to mean nor did I really care to reflect on them. There was some lovely writing but for a. story I expected to move me, I was left cold.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

3/5 (let's call it tentative)

Always the most important aspects of a piece of writing are the sincerity of the emotions behind them and their ability to convey those emotions, and certainly The Selfless Act of Breathing achieves that. For whatever shortfalls it has, the internal struggle is always brought to the forefront and is generally presented very well.

This is a novel that tackles a lot in a relatively short length, and this works in some moments and fails to in others. There are many moments, relationships, etc, that I wanted to see expanded. But, the overall structure and pacing of the novel did work quite well for me, so it's a tradeoff. The overarching story component of Michael's money slowly running out, at the end of which he plans to kill himself, is incredibly effective. Sometimes the ticking clock seems at odds with Michael's increasingly positive outlook, and then at other points it seems as if Michael would rather it count down faster. It does wonders for the ebb and flow of the emotions of the novel.

Much of the prose is beautiful, full of free-flowing emotions and imagery, but an oddly major portion is instead rather amateur and ineffective, clogged with cliché metaphors and sentence structures. The dialogue has a similar problem, sometimes feeling too contemporary and somehow comes off as stilted as a result, while at other points it falls into philosophical poeticism that feels so outside the realm of realistic speech. The dialogue does hit the sweet spot where it counts, but on the fringes are these conversations that don't have the full intended effect.

The final moments of the novel are so beautifully done (honestly that probably tipped me into a decisively positive opinion of the book). It's always good for the ending to be among the heights of a novel, and this one definitely left a strong impression in the end, with paragraphs that combine the strengths of the writing style throughout, and a very nice perspective change to just heighten that emotion.

Despite wishing there were more of it and that it were a little more consistent in the quality of its prose, I liked this novel, as its story has excellent foundation, and the main character is rather well-rendered, with his emotions seeping through at every turn.

This book was a beautiful debut novel! This was a heartbreaking story of self-discovery that I was thoroughly invested in. What a quick read. I would definitely read more from this author.

This book is being marketed as a mash up of Transcendent Kingdom and A Man Called Over and I think its doing the book a disserve, I think this Open Water and Transcendent Kingdom had a baby... The Selfless Act of Breathing would be the child. This is my way of saying... it's a beautiful child that you MUST READ!

This is such a beautiful debut, Bola has a way with words where they get under your skin, and stay there. I was so moved by how the author handled Michael story, it was nuanced, fresh, engaging, and truly beautiful, I think everyone should read this book.

Suffocating under the weight of life and past trauma, Michael Kabongo, a Congolese-British teacher, leaves London and goes to America for a last adventure before he ends his life. The novel is set up with alternating timelines: Michael's past life in London, which is narrated in first person, and his trip across America, narrated in third person. At times the prose is beautiful and lyrical, other times it's rather expository, even awkward. But the strength of this novel is in its emotional texture and the way it explores race, love, and what makes a life worth living.

This book digs deep into depression, despair, isolation, and lack of hope. Michael is a teacher in London who finds it more and more difficult to function normally. He is grown, but still lives with his mother. He is wrapped in despair and becomes increasingly hopeless. He resigns his job, takes all his life savings, and goes to America, the land of the free, to travel until his money runs out, and then he plans to die, thinking then he will finally be at peace. His travel journey is interesting and he has some adventures and meets interesting people, even finds some romance. Michael must decide if life is worth living.

This is a sad, depressing book; however it is written in beautiful prose. Bola has published poetry previously and I'm sure that carries over into this novel. Michael's story is told in two timelines that go back and forth from London to America - it shifts back and forth with no dates, so I had trouble with the disjointedness. There were also some questions I had that I felt were pertinent to the book that were not answered - that's why I'm giving it three stars instead of four.

Thanks to Atria Books through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on February 15,2022.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria Books for the opportunity to read and review this novel by JJ Bola - 3.5 stars rounded up.

Michael is living in London, working as a teacher, but becoming increasingly depressed and hopeless about his future. He makes a decision to quit his life, withdraw all his savings, fly to America and end his life when his money runs out. Along his travels in the US, he meets a variety of people - but does it give him a reason to keep living?

I had mixed feelings about this book. It was gorgeously written - you can tell the author is a poet yet none of the prose is too lyrical. I liked the premise of the book as well - that Michael needed a new view on life to carry him forward. However, it was a confusingly-written book for me - the chapters alternated with Michael in the UK before and Michael in the US now. That would be fine except that the chapter titles only included place and time, not date, so you had to pay strict attention to timelines. As someone who has lost a loved one to suicide, depression and suicide weren't portrayed correctly, in my mind. Even the title, though beautiful, seems to say that suicide is selfish and living selfless. I still felt the writing beautiful and was intrigued to see how it would all end.

"Like homes, we also need to be taken care of as much as we can; and to have something live inside us in order for us to live. But regardless, in the end, we eventually go back to nature, back to death, submerged by the will of the earth. And, in our most earnest moments, maybe we are all just homes, burning, and love is the water that saves us. And maybe, love is that someone who still sees, in all the burned down brokenness of our house, the beauty in us—the stories and memories that we hold inside, and restores us and makes us home."

This is the story of Michael Kabongo, a teacher in London. We see him in two timelines: when his plane is landing in San Francisco where he's arrived with a few thousand dollars left to his name and he is determined to end his life once he runs out of money and when he's in London in the past so we can see what his life used to look like.

In both lives, he is sad, lonely and depressed. And the story definitely has the atmosphere of that loneliness and the gray haze of depression.

"Not everyone seeks love, some seek quiet, seek peace. I slowly distanced myself from those around me and returned into the quiet where I had been all along. Where I long to be."

The writing in this novel is beautiful. The metaphors are vivid and they stay with you long after the story is finished. You can see them come alive and take root.

And yet. the character development isn't as strong. It's hard to feel connected to Michael. It's hard to truly understand him. Maybe because he's so depressed, there's a lack of intensity in most anything he does, except for a few scenes, it's hard to see him feeling his feelings and thus it's hard to feel much as a reader.

I found this to be a quick read despite the sad subject matter and the metaphors will stay with me for a long time.

"Inside me there is a man who lives in an abandoned city, and he walks around looking for company; another life, another soul, someone to touch, someone to hold. The city is endless, it has no limits, nothing to differentiate where it would end, or begin. Every day, this man wakes up and walks. He walks until his feet are blackened and burning like charcoal, until his limbs collapse into themselves and he can walk no more. Then he falls and lies there to rest—this man has no home. The next day, he wakes and walks again, and again, and again. But each day, he walks a little less than the day before, each day he gets a little more tired. This man knows it, feels it, that it’s only a matter of time until he can walk no more, and his only desire is to lie wherever he finds himself and sleep eternally."

with gratitude to netgalley and Atria Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Excellent story! Totally engrossing!. Looking forward to reading more by this author! Could not put this down!

I am very sorry to say this book wasn't for me. I tried reading it, didn't enjoy so I stopped. I tried picking it back up, but I still did not enjoy it.

As a reader, I could tell that this book was written by a poet. The Selfless Act of Breathing by JJ Bola moves the book along with lyrical prose. I think this book caused me to sometimes to lose track of the story because I was wrapped up in the words and the writing.

This book has a good premise but I never got engaged in Michael's story. I chose this book because it is about running away and starting over. I can relate to this thinking and excited to try running away and starting over fresh. Michael's story is also about spiraling depression and thoughts of suicide. Michael had a nice life in London until things fell apart for him. The book talks about his friendships and adventures in the US. However, once he runs out of money, he plans on killing himself. I think the book was a bit confusing because it jumped between his life in London and his time in the US. I do enjoy books with dual timelines. The book had times in the chapter titles but it never put this in perspective of years which I think would make the dual timeline work better.

I would like to thank NetGalley for an advanced copy of The Selfless Act of Breathing in exchange for an honest review. #NetGalley #TheSelflessActofBreathing #JJBola