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Breathing Lessons: A Novel Kindle Edition
Unfolding over the course of a single emotionally fraught day, this stunning novel encompasses a lifetime of dreams, regrets and reckonings—and is oftern regarded as Tyler's seminal work. Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials and its triumphs—through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other’s faults with patience and affection. Where Maggie is quirky, lovable and mischievous, Ira is practical, methodical and mired in reason. What begins as a day trip becomes a revelatory and unexpected journey, as Ira and Maggie rediscover the strength of their bond and the joy of having somebody with whom to share the ride, bumps and all.
“More powerful and moving than anything [Tyler] has done.” —Los Angeles Times
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateFebruary 9, 2011
- File size2004 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“A wonderful novel, glowing with the insight and compassion of an artist’s touch.” —The Boston Globe
“Displays her extraordinary gifts in supreme harmony: exquisite narrative clarity, faultless comic timing, and the Tyler trademark of happy-sad characters inspiring a mid-American domestic drama that somehow slips the surly bonds of the quotidian to become timeless and universal.” —“The 100 Best Novels,” The Guardian
From the Inside Flap
Read by Jill Eikenberry
Breathing Lessons was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
Breathing Lessons is the wonderfully moving and surprising story of Ira and Maggie Moran. She's impetuous, harum-scarum, easy-going; he's competent, patient, seemingly infallible. They've been married for 28 years. Now, as they drive from their home in Baltimore to the funeral of Maggie's best friend's husband, Anne Tyler shows us all there is to know about a marriage - the expectations, the disappointments, the way children can create storms in a family, the way a wife and husband can fall in love all over again, the way nothing really changes.
Anne Tyler's funny, unpredictable and endearing characterizations make Breathing Lessons a truly entertaining audio experience.
About the Author
Suzanne Toren has recorded over nine hundred audiobooks. She has performed on Broadway and in regional theaters in works penned by Shakespeare, Moliere, and Arthur Miller. She has also appeared on Law & Order and in various soap operas. She was awarded the Narrator of the Year Award for her audiobook recordings for the Library of Congress and has earned more than two dozen Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine.
Anne Tyler is the author of sixteen novels, including Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Accidental Tourist, and her most recent, The Amateur Marriage. Her short stories have been published in the New Yorker and other magazines. Tyler’s new children’s book, Timothy Tugbottom Says No! illustrated by Mitra Modarressi, will be published in September 2005. She lives in Baltimore,Maryland.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Maggie and Ira Moran had to go to a funeral in Deer Lick, Pennsylvania. Maggie’s girlhood friend had lost her husband. Deer Lick lay on a narrow country road some ninety miles north of Baltimore, and the funeral was scheduled for ten-thirty Saturday morning; so Ira figured they should start around eight. This made him grumpy. (He was not an early-morning kind of man.) Also Saturday was his busiest day at work, and he had no one to cover for him. Also their car was in the body shop. It had needed extensive repairs and Saturday morning at opening time, eight o’clock exactly, was the soonest they could get it back. Ira said maybe they’d just better not go, but Maggie said they had to. She and Serena had been friends forever. Or nearly forever: forty-two years, beginning with Miss Kimmel’s first grade.
They planned to wake up at seven, but Maggie must have set the alarm wrong and so they overslept. They had to dress in a hurry and rush through breakfast, making do with faucet coffee and cold cereal. Then Ira headed off for the store on foot to leave a note for his customers, and Maggie walked to the body shop. She was wearing her best dress—blue and white sprigged, with cape sleeves—and crisp black pumps, on account of the funeral. The pumps were only medium-heeled but slowed her down some anyway; she was more used to crepe soles. Another problem was that the crotch of her panty hose had somehow slipped to about the middle of her thighs, so she had to take shortened, unnaturally level steps like a chunky little windup toy wheeling along the sidewalk.
Luckily, the body shop was only a few blocks away. (In this part of town things were intermingled—small frame houses like theirs sitting among portrait photographers’ studios, one-woman beauty parlors, driving schools, and podiatry clinics.) And the weather was perfect—a warm, sunny day in September, with just enough breeze to cool her face. She patted down her bangs where they tended to frizz out like a forelock. She hugged her dress-up purse under her arm. She turned left at the corner and there was Harbor Body and Fender, with the peeling green garage doors already hoisted up and the cavernous interior smelling of some sharp-scented paint that made her think of nail polish.
She had her check all ready and the manager said the keys were in the car, so in no time she was free to go. The car was parked toward the rear of the shop, an elderly gray-blue Dodge. It looked better than it had in years. They had straightened the rear bumper, replaced the mangled trunk lid, ironed out a half-dozen crimps here and there, and covered over the dapples of rust on the doors. Ira was right: no need to buy a new car after all. She slid behind the wheel. When she turned the ignition key, the radio came on—Mel Spruce’s AM Baltimore, a call-in talk show. She let it run, for the moment. She adjusted the seat, which had been moved back for someone taller, and she tilted the rearview mirror downward. Her own face flashed toward her, round and slightly shiny, her blue eyes quirked at the inner corners as if she were worried about something when in fact she was only straining to see in the gloom. She shifted gears and sailed smoothly toward the front of the shop, where the manager stood frowning at a clipboard just outside his office door.
Today’s question on AM Baltimore was: “What Makes an Ideal Marriage?” A woman was phoning in to say it was common interests. “Like if you both watch the same kind of programs on TV,” she explained. Maggie couldn’t care less what made an ideal marriage. (She’d been married twenty-eight years.) She rolled down her window and called, “Bye now!” and the manager glanced up from his clipboard. She glided past him—a woman in charge of herself, for once, lipsticked and medium-heeled and driving an undented car.
A soft voice on the radio said, “Well, I’m about to remarry? The first time was purely for love? It was genuine, true love and it didn’t work at all. Next Saturday I’m marrying for security.”
Maggie looked over at the dial and said, “Fiona?”
She meant to brake, but accelerated instead and shot out of the garage and directly into the street. A Pepsi truck approaching from the left smashed into her left front fender—the only spot that had never, up till now, had the slightest thing go wrong with it.
Back when Maggie played baseball with her brothers, she used to get hurt but say she was fine, for fear they would make her quit. She’d pick herself up and run on without a limp, even if her knee was killing her. Now she was reminded of that, for when the manager rushed over, shouting, “What the . . . ? Are you all right?” she stared straight ahead in a dignified way and told him, “Certainly. Why do you ask?” and drove on before the Pepsi driver could climb out of his truck, which was probably just as well considering the look on his face. But in fact her fender was making a very upsetting noise, something like a piece of tin dragging over gravel, so as soon as she’d turned the corner and the two men—one scratching his head, one waving his arms—had disappeared from her rearview mirror, she came to a stop. Fiona was not on the radio anymore. Instead a woman with a raspy tenor was comparing her five husbands. Maggie cut the motor and got out. She could see what was causing the trouble. The fender was crumpled inward so the tire was hitting against it; she was surprised the wheel could turn, even. She squatted on the curb, grasped the rim of the fender in both hands, and tugged. (She remembered hunkering low in the tall grass of the outfield and stealthily, wincingly peeling her jeans leg away from the patch of blood on her knee.) Flakes of gray-blue paint fell into her lap. Someone passed on the sidewalk behind her but she pretended not to notice and tugged again. This time the fender moved, not far but enough to clear the tire, and she stood up and dusted off her hands. Then she climbed back inside the car but for a minute simply sat there. “Fiona!” she said again. When she restarted the engine, the radio was advertising bank loans and she switched it off.
Ira was waiting in front of his store, unfamiliar and oddly dashing in his navy suit. A shock of ropy black, gray-threaded hair hung over his forehead. Above him a metal sign swung in the breeze: sam’s frame shop. picture framing. matting. your needlework professionally displayed. Sam was Ira’s father, who had not had a thing to do with the business since coming down with a “weak heart” thirty years before. Maggie always put “weak heart” in quotation marks. She made a point of ignoring the apartment windows above the shop, where Sam spent his cramped, idle, querulous days with Ira’s two sisters. He would probably be standing there watching. She parked next to the curb and slid over to the passenger seat.
Ira’s expression was a study as he approached the car. Starting out pleased and approving, he rounded the hood and drew up short when he came upon the left fender. His long, bony, olive face grew longer. His eyes, already so narrow you couldn’t be sure if they were black or merely dark brown, turned to puzzled, downward-slanting slits. He opened the door and got in and gave her a sorrowful stare.
“There was an unexpected situation,” Maggie told him.
“Just between here and the body shop?”
“I heard Fiona on the radio.”
“That’s five blocks! Just five or six blocks.”
“Ira, Fiona’s getting married.”
He gave up thinking of the car, she was relieved to see. Something cleared on his forehead. He looked at her a moment and then said, “Fiona who?”
“Fiona your daughter-in-law, Ira. How many Fionas do we know? Fiona the mother of your only grandchild, and now she’s up and marrying some total stranger purely for security.”
Ira slid the seat farther back and then pulled away from the curb. He seemed to be listening for something—perhaps for the sound of the wheel hitting. But evidently her tug on the fender had done the trick. He said, “Where’d you hear this?”
“On the radio while I was driving.”
“They’d announce a thing like that on the radio?”
“She telephoned it in.”
“That seems kind of . . . self-important, if you want my honest opinion,” Ira said.
“No, she was just—and she said that Jesse was the only one she’d ever truly loved.”
“She said this on the radio?”
“It was a talk show, Ira.”
“Well, I don’t know why everyone has to go spilling their guts in public these days,” Ira said.
“Do you suppose Jesse could have been listening?” Maggie asked. The thought had just occurred to her.
“Jesse? At this hour? He’s doing well if he’s up before noon.”
Maggie didn’t argue with that, although she could have. The fact was that Jesse was an early riser, and anyhow, he worked on Saturdays. What Ira was implying was that he was shiftless. (Ira was much harder on their son than Maggie was. He didn’t see half as many good points to him.) She faced forward and watched the shops and houses sliding past, the few pedestrians out with their dogs. This had been the driest summer in memory and the sidewalks had a chalky look. The air hung like gauze. A boy in front of Poor Man’s Grocery was tenderly dusting his bicycle spokes with a cloth.
“So you started out on Empry Street,” Ira said.
“Hmm?”
“Where the body shop is.”
“Yes, Empry Street.”
“And then cut over to Daimler . . .”
He was back on the subject of the fender. She said, “I did it driving out of the garage.”
“You mean right there? Right at the body shop?”
“I went to hit the brake but I hit the gas instead.”
“How could that happen?”
“Well, Fiona came on the radio and I was startled.”
“I mean the brake isn’t something you have to think about, Maggie. You’ve been driving since you were sixteen years old. How could you mix up the brake with the gas pedal?”
“I just did, Ira. All right? I just got startled and I did. So let’s drop it.”
“I mean a brake is more or less reflex.”
“If it means so much to you I’ll pay for it out of my salary.”
Now it was his turn to hold his tongue. She saw him start to speak and then change his mind. (Her salary was laughable. She tended old folks in a nursing home.)
If they’d had more warning, she thought, she would have cleaned the car’s interior before they set out. The dashboard was littered with parking-lot stubs. Soft-drink cups and paper napkins covered the floor at her feet. Also there were loops of black and red wire sagging beneath the glove compartment; nudge them accidentally as you crossed your legs and you’d disconnect the radio. She considered that to be Ira’s doing. Men just generated wires and cords and electrical tape everywhere they went, somehow. They might not even be aware of it.
From AudioFile
Product details
- ASIN : B004GTLKLY
- Publisher : Vintage (February 9, 2011)
- Publication date : February 9, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 2004 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 337 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0345485572
- Best Sellers Rank: #243,164 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #402 in Psychological Literary Fiction
- #1,720 in Contemporary Literary Fiction
- #1,841 in Psychological Fiction (Kindle Store)
- Customer Reviews:
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable. They appreciate the author's writing style and language. The humor is praised as entertaining and well-integrated with the story. However, some readers found the plot dull and slow-paced, while others felt the characters were well-developed and convincingly portrayed. Opinions differ on the character development - some found them well-received and memorable, while others found them annoying or hard to like.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers enjoy the book's readability. They find it enjoyable, interesting, and great for vacation reading. The book is well-written and simple.
"An interesting book. A look at life. A look at how different people can see one thing and others see something completely differently." Read more
"...Anne Tyler does a very good job in showing four lives through the microscope of a single day; we see the repeating rhythms and patterns..." Read more
"Book arrived on time and in very good condition, as advertised. This is big because I had to send the same book back to another vendor...." Read more
"...The Accidental Tourist was a compulsive, riveting read - maybe Anne Tyler should treat herself to a holiday between books?!..." Read more
Customers appreciate the writing quality of the book. They find it well-written, with a distinct rhythm and style. The dialogue is accurate, and the characters are engaging.
"I can see the appeal to some readers. The book is well written but to me Maggie was frustrating as a main character. I just didn’t like the story." Read more
"...It is well-written and I will try another of her books, but I'd skip this one." Read more
"This book is just that: well written and well edited. It is about as ho-hum as you can get. Not much else to say about it...." Read more
"...It is far from my normal Sci-Fi fare, but is rather well-written. I found it pretty interesting and a real case-study in (what?)..." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and relatable. They appreciate the author's understanding of relationships and her passionate embrace of life. While some found the plot lackluster, others found it engaging and engrossing.
"...was written over 30 years ago, the relationships and dynamics between people ring true...." Read more
"This book is one of those books that lets you see events, as a reader, through the eyes of different characters...." Read more
"...This is a great depiction of American life and a rather enjoyable road trip in the life of this particular couple." Read more
"...books when they first came out, but after a few books, the quirkiness simply got annoying, and morphed into "precious"...." Read more
Customers enjoy the humor in the book. They find the characters realistic and lovable. The story is described as entertaining, with a leisurely style that integrates both sad and humorous situations throughout. Readers find it an interesting look into a woman's personal struggles and an enjoyable road trip.
"...Tyler engages the reader by moving the plot forward in a leisurely style involving memories and integrating sad and humorous situations throughout..." Read more
"...This is a great depiction of American life and a rather enjoyable road trip in the life of this particular couple." Read more
"...Life has a way of confusing and confronting us as Maggie was. I chuckled and nodded and empathized with her, having lived some of those moments..." Read more
"...The humor kept me enjoying it...." Read more
Customers have different views on the character development. Some find the characters well-developed, unique, and convincingly portrayed. Others find the central character annoying and hard to like.
"...The book is well written but to me Maggie was frustrating as a main character. I just didn’t like the story." Read more
"...of those books that lets you see events, as a reader, through the eyes of different characters...." Read more
"...might not like this book - particularly as the central character can be kind of annoying...." Read more
"...The characters were oddly quirky enough to be real and engaging enough that it did not matter if they were...." Read more
Customers have mixed opinions about the book's sadness. Some find it touching and uplifting, while others say some moments are heartbreaking.
"...Though some moments are dismally sad, the hope comes from when Maggie and Ira are able to comfort one another, and recognize one another in spite..." Read more
"...I still found more to take away from this wonderful and heartbreaking journey of a marriage...." Read more
"This book, while good to read, left me sad for them, and for myself...." Read more
"...Funny and sad at the same time." Read more
Customers find the plot boring and depressing. They describe the main character as hapless and clueless. The book is described as tedious and slow-paced with no real purpose or point. Many feel the ending lacks closure.
"...Most of her escapades were just too predictable. It was hard to see her as a sympathetic character when all I could visualize was Edith Bunker!..." Read more
"...This is not a redemptive novel. To me it seems much more like a re-writing of "No Exit" than anything else." Read more
"...I gave the story 5 stars because I believe it was a wonderful story all about Maggie and how she perceived life and others...." Read more
"...I just don't get it. BORING!" Read more
Customers find the book's pacing slow and hard to follow.
"...of Anne Tyler recently and enjoyed them immensely, but I found this one slow and hard going...." Read more
"Not quite sure it was my favorite of her work. It seemed a tad slow; a tad too deliberate. Not recommending." Read more
"First Half of book painfully slow and boring. Got better but pretty predictable. A bit disappointing." Read more
"Incredibly slow and kind of like visiting my parents, but not in a good way." Read more
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2013I am in the process of reading every Pulitzer Prize winning book of fiction from 1917 to the present. i am reading them in order. This book won the prize in 1989. Some books are magnificent, some not so much. I would put this book somewhere near the middle of the pack. It was an easy read, and the characters were interesting, the story was good, and I found the book enjoyable. If you are looking for an easy reading enjoyable book, this is the one.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2024An interesting book. A look at life. A look at how different people can see one thing and others see something completely differently.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2016We see the lives of Maggie and Ira Moran through the microscope of a day of travel. They start the day going to the funeral of Maggie's best friend's husband; later, they stop by the house of their ex-daughter-in-law where Maggie tries to reconnect Fiona with her son Jesse.
Ira is quiet and practical: "He ought to have married Ann Landers, she thought... If he had married Ann Landers he'd have just the kind of hard-nosed, sensible wife he wanted. Sometimes, hearing his grunt of approval as he read one of Ann's snappy answers, Maggie felt an actual pang of jealousy." [p 32]. Maggie is a dreamer and an exaggerator: "And his wife! He loved her, but he couldn't stand how she refused to taker her own life seriously. She seemed to believe it was a sort of practice life, something she could afford to play around with as if they offered second and third chances to get it right. She was always making clumsy, impetuous ruses toward nowhere in particular - side trips, random detours." [p 126]
Although they see the world differently and remember different aspects of their history together they love one another. Maggie will do most anything to (re-)connect people she loves - because she sees the inner person. But those other people may just take what she says as the factual truth. "'Shut up, Maggie. She had no business telling you that,' Ira said to Fiona. 'It's Maggie's weakness: She believes it's all right to alter people's lives. She thinks the people she loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things around to suit her view of them.'" [p 266]
The breakup of their son and his wife affects them both although Ira won't say so. "Her fingers felt the answer first. He was just as sad as Maggie was, and for just the same reasons. He was lonely and tired and lacking in hope and his son had not turned out well and his daughter didn't think much of him, and he still couldn't figure where he had gone wrong." [p 277]
Although I didn't connect with this novel like the experts (it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1989] I can see its qualities. Anne Tyler does a very good job in showing four lives through the microscope of a single day; we see the repeating rhythms and patterns (for example fender benders) through remembrance and extended interior monologues. It's lovely to see how Ira and Maggie move forward together together despite their differences. If you are considering reading this, don't let my 3 stars dissuade you - the Pulitzer Prize folks know their business.
Apropos of nothing, I found it interesting to read this so soon after reading The Corrections; that novel tells the story of aging parents mostly from the viewpoint of the adult children. This novel tells the story of a son and daughter-in-law from the perspective of the parents.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2024Although some aspects of the story seem dated because the novel was written over 30 years ago, the relationships and dynamics between people ring true. Anne Tyler engages the reader by moving the plot forward in a leisurely style involving memories and integrating sad and humorous situations throughout the story. I love this award winning book!
- Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2018This book is one of those books that lets you see events, as a reader, through the eyes of different characters. In this case, mostly through the eyes of a middle-aged woman (Maggie) who is an American middle-class wife and mother whose children are growing up. She is struggling to find her purpose, as time moves forward. Her children no longer need her constant involvement in their lives, and in fact, often would prefer that she be less meddlesome. She is faced with a void, an identity crisis. Maggie's husband is a practical, serious man, who can't understand her emotional and meddlesome nature. His values privacy and independence. Maggie and Ira know one another so well, and that's what I like about this book. Though some moments are dismally sad, the hope comes from when Maggie and Ira are able to comfort one another, and recognize one another in spite of their differences. I guess that's why Anne Tyler named it this way, it's meant to recognize the difficulties of relationships and marriages and circumstances that change with time.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2013I couldn't believe this story took place in just one day. It literally wore me out. I had read and liked several of Anne Tyler's books when they first came out, but after a few books, the quirkiness simply got annoying, and morphed into "precious".
I'm reading this as part of a Pulitzer Prize library book club, and frankly it makes next month's selection, The Executioner's Song, look downright cheery. I gave it 2 stars because I know there were examples (none of which I can remember) of a very small comment or description that highlighted a much larger concept of human nature. But Maggie, pleeeeeeeeeeeeese, enough's enough! Most of her escapades were just too predictable. It was hard to see her as a sympathetic character when all I could visualize was Edith Bunker!
I recognize that this book is almost 25 years old. Maybe Breathing Lessons, Anne Tyler, or me just haven't aged well.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2023I can see the appeal to some readers. The book is well written but to me Maggie was frustrating as a main character. I just didn’t like the story.
Top reviews from other countries
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EdgarReviewed in Japan on October 19, 2022
4.0 out of 5 stars 人生と一日
本書は1988年に出版され、ピュリツァー賞を受賞した小説である。だから興味を持ったわけではなくて、アン・タイラーに興味を持ったきっかけは、脚本家の山田太一が褒めていたからだった。日常の些細なことを描くのに長けた作家なのだろう、と思った。
まさにそうだった。物語は、50歳前後の夫婦がある目的のためにドライブに出かける、いわばたったそれだけ。もちろん道中いろんなことがあり、たくさんの回想があり、帰ってからも少々ゴタゴタするのだが、これという大事件は起こらない。
しかし一日のうちに、妻にとっての気づき、夫にとっての気づき、さまざまな気づきが描かれる。そしてその向こうに、忘れる(忘れたふりをする)ことで「今」を生きる人間臭さのようなものが立ち現れる。まさにブリージング・レッスン、生きることの呼吸法だろう。
例えば、父親や障害を持つ姉のために人生を無駄にしたと考えていたアイラ(夫)が、本当の無駄は「こうした人間たちを支えていかなければならないことではなく、自分がいかに彼らを愛しているかに気づかなかったことだ」と気づく。「しかしその思いつきもいつのまにか薄れていき/アイラは、そのとき悟ったことを忘れてしまっていた」(P241~242)。これは、僕が本書の中で白眉と思った部分である。
- P. BlundellReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2016
4.0 out of 5 stars WELL WRITTEN AND LEAVES A LASTING IMPRESSION
This book certainly kept my attention all the way through. It is a book about family relationships. It is unusual for me to read books on this subject and as a man I found myself siding with the husband who stoically had to put up with his wife's incredible meddling in the affairs of other family members. The wife is clearly well meaning but causes absolute mayhem within her family by trying to engineer other people's relationships to fit her 'perfect' view of how things should be. I think women would enjoy this book more than men but it is well written and thought provoking.
- ADRIANAReviewed in Italy on April 3, 2016
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Quite amazing this "a day in the life of..." story. Beautifully written, wise and thtoughy provoking... Probably more for the third and fourth generation reader
- Always ReadingReviewed in Australia on February 20, 2016
2.0 out of 5 stars Why was this book so highly regarded?
In all honesty, it's been a while since I read this book. I don't even remember the storyline now.
What I DO remember, is ploughing on valliantly to the end, hoping it would improve. It didn't. But most of all I remember just feeling really annoyed that I can never get the time back I wasted on reading this book!
To make matters worse, a friend had sent me the actual book as a birthday present from England.
Unfortunately the print was too small for my poor eyesight, so I purchased it as an ebook! I'll try to find someone to take the paperback off my hands.
- Vanaja ShankarReviewed in India on August 9, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars The title says it all
What we need in life, we are not taught in schools. This book, through the eyes of Maggie shows us the difference between our dreams and reality. There are so many instances where like Maggie, I thought if only youngsters would listen to sane advice. We realise that we cannot influence others to change . The change has to come from within. You can't always protect them from failure. They need to experience failure to understand success. The book doesn't end the way I wanted but probably that is the beauty of this story.