Breaststrokes

Author: Margaux Vialleron

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Available: 9^th May 2024 in Hardback, eBook & Audiobook

Thank you to Anne Cater, Random Things Tours  and Simon & Schuster for my gifted copy and for having me on the blog tour for this book. My review is based on my experience of the book and any thoughts expressed here are solely mine alone.

Book Details

 A novel on pleasure, desire and consent told over the course of one weekend.

Cloe and Gertrude and the Jenkins-Bell sisters, Mathilde and Sarah, have never met.  They are strangers who share only a city. It is Sunday morning. Cloe has woken-up in someone else’s home; Gertrude starts her shift in the pub kitchen, while Mathilde and Sarah are on their way to lunch.
Soon, these four women’s lives will overlap.
Saturday felt like a normal day, but on Sunday the past will catch-up with them as they realise that there never is only one side to a story.

My Thoughts:

In the past few years, I have made a conscious effort to read books, by female authors, who creatively, reflectively and powerfully, embark on exploring issues of our modern society, that on the whole specifically impact the lives of women. It was with this thought in mind, that I found myself drawn to the description of Margaux Vialleron’s book Breaststrokes and I couldn’t resist my desire to read it and now I very much hope, that after you read my little review, you will be inspired to add it to your book collection too!

With Breastrokes, Margaux has crafted a female centric novel that I found to be, a delightfully intelligent, incisive, intense and intimate read. She has woven an elucidating and elegant story, that from the very first lilting page, strokes the synapses in your mind to wakefulness. I found myself slightly heady with anticipation and concentrating hard on the words, rolling off the page into my head, the sensation of expectation washed over me, as I was introduced to Cloe, Gertrude, Mathilde and Sarah and I wondered in which direction, this story would enfold. There is also, from the outset of the book, a very subtle suggestion of foreboding, not sufficient to discourage my reading but merely to hint, that potentially there would be uncomfortable situations to face as I read on.

Very quickly, you are immersed in the lives of the four women and their back stories, their familial, friendship and romantic relationships and their current work and life circumstances are bared for you to digest and examine and I felt like I knew these women and could relate to their many internal and external thoughts. I could comprehend and connect to their experiences, and they reminded me of swans on a lake, they all seem to be gliding along seamlessly.  It then of course occurred to me, that swans have to paddle hard under the surface of the water, to make their trajectory, look so effortless and exactly the same can be said of the women in this book. Margaux depicts, their external images so easily and yet beneath the beautiful surface of each woman, are their wounds and scars, some emotional, some physical but they are not invisible, you just need to really look to see them.

I think that is a lesson for us all in this message, that we all need look beyond peripheral appearances and correlate with, what feelings are beneath a person’s surface layer. As we women are particularly adept at disguising our true selves, for our own protection and to encourage the acceptance of the society around us.

The construction of Margaux’s novel is an important feature, I loved how, she allotted rotating chapters to each woman, allowing us readers to fully experience their perspectives and omnipotently observe the moments, when their physical paths cross and intertwine and also when thematically their experiences of loss, grief, mental crisis and abuse oscillate across their lives. A core theme of this book is the controversial and divergently complex issue of consent, which I thought Margaux handled with sublime empathy and compassionate fierceness and I applaud her skill in doing so and for addressing such an immensely important topic, with such aplomb!

For me Breastrokes, is a cogent, cohesive, clever, compelling and compassionate read. It is a book designed, to inform, to encourage and to provoke impactful and invigorating discussions primarily on the issues of consent. It is a book destined to make all who turn its pages, thoroughly engage their brains and I love that. I really encourage you to get hold of a copy, as soon as possible, as it is truly, a masterful piece of literary fiction.

 Happy Reading Bookophiles

About the Author:

MARGAUX VIALLERON is French-born, Glasgow-based writer, who is co-host of the SPK Book Club – a podcast, reading and culinary community. Her short stories and essays have been published in magazines including Harper’s Bazaar and Compound Butter.

She is the author of The Yellow Kitchen and Breaststrokes is her second novel.

Read more from Margaux by subscribing to her substack newsletter, The Onion Papers, or connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @margauxvlln.

Please do read some of the other reviews available on this blog tour.