Lynn Spencer - All About Romance

I'd give this 3.5 stars. Normally, I love Christa Parrish's work. I read a fair amount of inspirational romance and fiction, and one thing I like about Parrish's books are that her characters don't seem like something out of an idealized vision of the 1950's. She fills her books with people who seem modern, real, and often quite flawed. That's true of The Air We Breathe, and I did enjoy parts of this book, but somehow the narrative didn't flow as naturally here as in her previous novels.This book really tells more than 1 story. We see much of the action through the eyes of 17 year old Molly Fisk, daughter of a museum caretaker in rural Maine. Molly is terrified to go outside,and so she lives inside the museum. As the novel unfolds, we see bits and pieces of Molly's past, some through her eyes and some through the eyes of people that knew her, including Connie Rodriguez, a woman who connects with Molly as she struggles to overcome her own tragedies.I had sympathy for the characters in this book, but I had a much harder time getting drawn into the story than I did when reading Home Another Way or Watch Over Me. Something about this story just felt disjointed, and the characters felt a bit distant and frustratingly difficult to understand at times. I still enjoyed Parrish's writing style, and I think she has a very distinctive voice that sets her apart from much that I find in the inspirational market. I'll certainly be interested in picking up another of her books in future even though this wasn't my favorite of her novels. However, for someone interested in trying her work for the first time, I'd recommend reading one of her other books first.