Breathe the Sky
Page 31
My eternal thanks to Kristine Swartz, for giving this book a home and a team of incredible professionals to bring it to the world, and for protecting my vision for the characters. I love how you’re willing to let me go there with my books, even about tough topics. Sorry again for Jack’s foul mouth. We can start the swear jar on the next book.
Flavored ChapSticks and fruit baskets to Jessica Mangicaro, Jessica Brock, Dache Rogers, Brittanie Black, and the rest of my hardworking team at Berkley, for being the bearers of good news, and the wizards behind the curtain working tirelessly to produce that good news. All publicists and marketing people go directly to heaven. It is known.
Hugs and crooked cakes to Katie Golding, who has been there since my very first fanfiction, weathering every celebration and disappointment with me, and living in my phone to keep me company when my husband is gone and I’m alone in the desert for too long. I love you, girl. Almost as much as I love your incredible books. ;)
I owe peach muffins for life to Gwynne Jackson for reading and voting on approximately one billion versions of the opening to this book. Your steadying presence and unwavering kindness are a constant inspiration to me. The sea otter pics don’t hurt, either.
All my love to Sandra Lombardo of Reads and Reviews, my books’ godmother, who gave lovely notes on this story and is there to support every one of my works. Thanks for always sending great reading recs and fangirling over books with me.
Special thanks this time to my workshop partners at the Pneuma Creative Meditation and Revision Retreat: Heather Demetrios, Lyn, and Shelly. Thanks for helping me dig deeper into Mari’s character, figure out a better climax, and make her goals more concrete. That retreat week was magical (Ingrid, I love you!) and I have to give a special shout out to the amazing Highlights Retreat Center in the Pennsylvania forest, and to German Chef Lady and her very inspiring story about four-leaf clovers.
Peanut butter cookies and all my heart go to Margaret Torres, who still has no idea how much her enthusiasm breathes life into my muse.
Blankets and hand-warmers and love to Rhylaigh Richler, who has been a light in every tunnel I’ve ever been in.
Thanks to Sarah Bailey for her excitement about this book and all her very useful notes, and for being my musical soul sister.
Blown kisses to my collective fiancé, the Berkley Art Department. I proposed marriage to all of them collectively for the gorgeous cover of Unbreak Me and I was forced to declare my undying love to them again when they nailed the cover for this book on their first try. Considering I’m that author who asks for “just one more tiny adjustment” approximately 436 times for every cover, that is a feat worthy of temples and marble statuary.
Big love to my wonderful family and my mom, who is the world’s most hardworking publicist, and a killer bookkeeper. Thanks for all the spreadsheets, Mom!
To my fanfiction readers, whose love and support got me into this writing career, and whose reviews and belief in me have revived my rejection-crushed heart for far more than its allotted nine lives. God bless you, every one.
I do realize these acknowledgments are eight hundred years long, but I can’t finish without giving a wave of my sun-gloved hand to all my fellow tortoise biologists. I’ve been to a lot of countries, on a lot of continents, and tortoise bios are by far the strangest, most independent-thinking, competent, and kind individuals I have ever encountered.
You all have squinted through sandstorms, slogged through rain, and sweated—endlessly sweated—with me. We’ve twisted our ankles in the scree fields of Mt. Doom, and staggered through the Valley of Fun. You’ve made me laugh when I was too tired to see straight and invented birthday presents and parties for me when we were oh so many miles from any store. Most importantly, you taught me how to keep searching without ever giving up, despite thousands of hours of finding nothing, because on the 10,001st hour, sometimes there’s a tortoise! That was truly the best preparation for a writing career that a girl could ask for.
Tortoise work has been hard, but it’s afforded me the freedom to build a life better than my wildest dreams. I am infinitely grateful for that, and for all of you.
Author’s Note
This story deals with some very tough themes, about types of abuse that happen every day in America. I worry that too much popular media shows both abusers and survivors as easily dismissed caricatures, not as people with complicated motivations and a few unhealthy habits that don’t always serve them, just like the rest of us. To be clear, I don’t think anything ever excuses or justifies abuse, but I also think portraying abusers as cartoon villains of unrelenting evil makes it difficult for observers to grasp why it’s so difficult for survivors to leave those relationships. I tried, with the research methods at my disposal and my own observed experiences, to make this a more accurate picture of what some people have endured. However, no one story can encapsulate all the different ways abuse can be experienced, or all the different reactions people have to it, and I don’t pretend this could ever be universal.
If you’re reading this as a survivor, I know what you went through was entirely unique to you and no story could quite capture it the way it happened. Still, I hope that you found strength and validation in these pages, and I pray that nothing I’ve written causes you any additional hurt.
If you’re reading this and any part of Mari’s old abusive relationship is sounding too familiar to you, you can call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). No matter how hopeless or impossible or just plain complicated your situation is, there is help available for exactly that and to get you safe. You don’t have to face this alone.
Questions for Discussion
1. If you were going to be a wildlife biologist, what animals would you most like to work with?
2. Did you see any ways in which Mari’s and Jack’s experiences of abuse make it easier for them to connect with each other, even though it might have made it more difficult for them to connect with other people?
3. Both Mari and Jack struggle with how to follow their hearts, when so many of their instincts are habits driven by years of abuse and insecurity. In your own life, how do you tell when to follow your heart, and when your first impulse might instead be self-sabotaging, produced by old bad habits?
4. Both Mari and Jack feel in some ways unworthy of having a home and family, but their longing for it shows in their fascination with home improvement shows. Do you think having a physical space is essential to the concept of home? How much or how little do you think this contributes?
5. Mari’s ex-husband uses tears and reminders of their good times together to influence her. Did you expect him to use emotional manipulation tactics or more physical intimidation? Which do you think would have been harder to resist, if you were in that situation?
6. Some of Mari’s conflict with Jack comes from her worries that his shouty temper could be a warning sign that he could later become abusive or violent. What are some warning signs of an abusive relationship? How can you tell the difference between when someone’s simply angry, and when they might be dangerous?
7. Rajni’s test of a good man in “Pizza Doesn’t Lie” might seem oversimplified at first glance. But what does her example define about the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy relationship?
8. At the end of the book, Mari says hope is a keystone species, because its existence changes everything around it for the better. What are other “keystone species” in a relationship?
Photograph of the author by Chris Holcomb
Michelle Hazen is a nomad with a writing problem. Years ago, she and her husband swapped office jobs for seasonal wildlife biology gigs, and moved into their Toyota truck. As a result, she wrote most of her books with solar power in odd places, including a bus in Thailand, a golf cart in a sandstorm, and a beach in Honduras. These days, if she’s not hiking or scuba diving, she’s probably writing fan fiction, watching Veronica Mars, or drivin
g an indefensible amount of miles to get to a Revivalists’ concert.
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