Review: They Just Don't Get Better Than This!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 28, 2014
I can't remember the last time (if ever) I got to the end of a book with tears streaming down my face, laughing hysterically.This is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. Creative, inventive, touching, even scary at moments, it is the work of a true master at both the craft and art of writing.Most of the characters are inherited from the previous book, including the main character,  Tyson (The Kid), an incredibly smart, precocious young fellow who is as broken as he is brilliant. Ty and his his brother, Derrick (Bear), were abandoned by their mother when Ty was only five. Bear raised him, being father, friend and brother to Ty. He is the only one who could get him through the panic attacks that have ruled his life, holding him and exhorting him to "breathe... hold, two...hold,...three...hold, breathe". He pretty much gave up his life to support and protect The Kid and, along the way, married the love of his life, Oliver (Otter).Ty has only one friend in the world, an overgrown boy, some years older than him, whom he befriended when he was assiduously tracking an ant on the sidewalk. The two became inseparable, and Dominic (Dom) became part of his family. Dominic was damaged, too, which is likely why the two felt such an immediate bond. When Dominic was just a kid, his father attacked his mother, in front of him, and though he stabbed him seven times to protect her, he was too late to save her. He never got over that and spent the rest of his youth bouncing around the Foster Care system.Although Dominic was huge and strong, he was shy and withdrawn. Only Ty brought him out of his shell. Their love never went beyond friendship, if for no other reason, the age difference between them would have made a more intimate relationship out of the question.At the age of 15, Ty is accepted at Dartmouth and has to leave Seafare, Oregon, his home, and move to New Hampshire to attend school. Of course, this rips the two best friends apart. Even worse, Ty sees Dom kissing a woman and, literally, flips out, hiding in a bathtub and unable to breathe. Now he knows that the boy he loves more than anyone with the exception of his brother, Bear, is not available, and never will be.For the next four years, Ty will neither accept calls nor visits from Dom - and he is falling apart. The main plot of the book is the journey of these two wonderful, but damaged men, back to each other."The Art Of Breathing" is a complex book with a host of subplots and secondary characters, every one of them well-developed, unique, eccentric and brimming with personality. Among them is Ty's bigendered Dartmouth friend, Corey (sometimes Kori) and the friends she brings into Tyson's life, including a renowned female impersonator and a whole cast of bizarre and loving people surrounding her, a long-lost sister, a horny "straight" college roommate who keeps trying to get Ty into bed, Dom's spouse, a team of horny frat boys playing volleyball on the beach, and the beloved Mrs. Paquinn whose voice is heard throughout the book despite the fact that she is long-departed.And speaking of voices, I don't know any contemporary author who handles dialogue as well as Mr. Klune. Not only is it believable and authentic, it's sometimes poetic and, often, totally over-the-top. In his role as protector, Bear is known to have flights of paranoia. One such amazing scenario spins out when Ty is scheduled to drive his roommate from Oregon to Tucson. Bear is terrified of the two driving, alone, 1500 miles from home. He goes into this wild riff in which he fantasies that their car breaks down in the desert, right next to a former meatpacking plant. Ty, the vegetarian animal activist would, of course, have to explore it, at which time he would be kidnapped by the serial-killing cult that inhabits the plant.... you get the drift. These excursions into fantasy are often hilarious. In fact, the book is laugh-out-loud funny in places, even as it deals with difficult and sad situations, leaving the reader confused as to whether to laugh or cry. As I mentioned earlier, I did both - often at the same time.The writing is nothing less than brilliant. I bookmarked some passages just to go back and enjoy the rhythm, metaphor, poetry and laugh-out-loud humor of some of Mr. Klune's words.One of the secondary characters, Anna, admonishes her young son, JJ:"And why don't we eat glitter and glue any more? Anna asked her son.Because you said it makes my poop look like abstract art."Despite the humor and the incredibly interesting and attractive characters, Mr. Klune has some very serious points to make about family - and how so many traditional families fail, resulting in damaged kids. And how important it is that, today, we have the invaluable opportunity to make our own families, families built on love, not accident of birth. The whole book, in fact, is a paean to friendship, commitment and brotherhood.There is one meme that ties the whole book together - a single word that the nine-year-old Ty just learned the same day that he met Dominic - "inevitable". That very first day, when asked by Ty whether they would be best friends, Dom replies "It's inevitable". All through the book, inevitability keeps popping up to tie its many parts together. And, of course, Dom and Tyson are, indeed, inevitable.If you're looking for a first-class read with brilliant characters and equally brilliant writing, this is the book. If you're looking for a book that's profoundly beautiful, this is the book. Thank you, Mr. Klune, from the bottom of my heart.