Zayden reviewed When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training …
Review of 'When Breath Becomes Air' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
A sad book.
The prose was good, and the quotes were good. I can see the author’s reading history. But in some ways the book feels unfinished - as, I suppose, it is. Some parts feel like they should have been expanded upon, or failing that, not been in the book at all. The arrangement of topics within the chapters also feels somewhat clunky.
But, that said, this is still a book that made me tear up several times. Its goal was to introduce the reader to how it feels to deal with a terminal illness, and it succeeds at that pretty well.
The prose was good, and the quotes were good. I can see the author’s reading history. But in some ways the book feels unfinished - as, I suppose, it is. Some parts feel like they should have been expanded upon, or failing that, not been in the book at all. The arrangement of topics within the chapters also feels somewhat clunky.
But, that said, this is still a book that made me tear up several times. Its goal was to introduce the reader to how it feels to deal with a terminal illness, and it succeeds at that pretty well.