Invisible as Air

by Zoe Fishman

For readers of Jodi Picoult and Jamie Attenberg, this provocative and powerful novel from the bestselling author of Inheriting Edith explores the meaning of family, the invisibility of addiction, and the unpredictability and all-encompassing nature of grief.

Sylvie Snow is a hard-working career woman, wife and mother who lives in a beautiful house and drives a beautiful car. She moisturizes regularly and wears expensive clothes. She does the grocery shopping, the laundry, the scheduling, the schlepping and the PTA-ing. She's planning a Bar Mitzvah for her movie-loving twelve year old son, Teddy, even though he's wholly disinterested in it. She's also newly addicted to the Oxycontin intended for her husband, Paul who has just broken his ankle.

For three years, Sylvie has repressed her grief about the heartbreaking stillbirth of her daughter, Delilah. On the morning of the anniversary of her death, when she just can't face doing one...more...thing: she takes one-just one-of her husband's discarded pain pills. And suddenly she feels patient, kinder, and miraculously relaxed. She tells herself that the pills are temporary, just a gift, and that when the supply runs out she'll go back to her regularly scheduled programming.

But days turn into weeks, and Sylvie slips slowly into a nightmare. At first, Paul and Teddy are completely unaware, but this changes quickly as her desperate choices reveal her desperate state. As the Bar Mitzvah nears, all three of them must face the void within themselves, both alone and together.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Book Club, Chick Lit, Contemporary, Womens Fiction, Drama

Audio CD

First published September 24, 2019

Reviews

[Katie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

This story really grew on me. I think what hit close to home was the fact Sylvie could easily be your next door neighbor, or co-worker, or even your family member. She starts taking her husband's pain pills to cope with her grief over the death of her baby a few years ago and becomes addicted. She has a nice job, lives in a beautiful home, and even is a PTA member, but she is an addict. And I appreciate that the author chose to feature her as a character because her story is one that is playing out in countless homes across America.

The book alternates between the perspectives of Sylvie, her husband Paul, and her teenage son, Teddy. For much of the story I felt the most invested in what was going on with Sylvie rather than her family members. However, as the story unfolded I came to appreciate the unique perspectives the other two brought to the table. Surprisingly I have not come across many fiction books featuring a middle aged, upper middle class, suburban mother type character like Sylvie with an opioid addiction. I'm not sure why that's the case because by now we know that this epidemic has hit all social classes, races, big cities, rural communities, you name it.

A story worth reading in my opinion. It's not a perfect book, but it's pretty darn realistic.

I won a free copy of this book from the LibraryThing Early Reviewer's program. I was under no obligation to post a review and all views expressed are my honest opinion.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Susan Brennett, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Maxwell Glick
…10 hours and 40
minutes

The catty-chatty-mommy-trolls…
…Botox-french-nails-back-stabbing-hilarious dialogue was like protected training wheels compared to ‘like-it-or-lump-it’, people who took oxycodone drugs.

Contemporary modern family madness, (secretly screwed up), Bar mitzvah madness, grief, tragedy, death, individual secrets, traditional birthday pancakes, risky-pills, hazy pink skies, regrets, loss,
love 💕…. and ‘more’ 💊✡️🧸🩺💉🚬🍩💋

Funny moment:
Calling your friends husband an ‘insufferable prick’….made me laugh.

Margie…my local friend?… sound familiar?


3.5 entertainment- comic/tragic - engrossingly good—
I mean it’s not going to win the Pulitzer Prize award— but it was comfy women’s fiction (don’t mock me I am a woman)…..
sometimes ‘easy-peezy’women’s fiction is like getting maximum results for the minimal amount of work effort.
In other words - easy to follow - little brain effort needed - is just perfect.

I like this ZOE FISHMAN…..(from her name to her spunky dialogue style)

[Mary Jackson _TheMaryReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an on time book. This book is playing out all over the world right now.
We could learn a lot from this dysfunctional family. No family is prefect and this one is very messed up.
I loved Teddy and his character was the best in the book. We could learn a lot from Teddy.
I gave this book 4 stars and recommend this one.
The Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required and all views expressed are our own.

[MCZ Reads · Rating 1 out of 5]

Thank you to Goodreads for this ARC! I am happy I could review this book. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations.

Invisible as Air tells the story of Sylvie, a mom trying to cope with everyday live while privately mourning a stillborn child; Paul, a husband who is entirely dependent on Sylvie while he recovers from a broken ankle; and Teddy, their son on the brink of turning 13 and contemplating what it means to be a man. Sylvie takes one of her husband's pain pills to get through a particularly challenging day. But her need for "just one pill" escalates into an opioid addiction. This story covers addiction, loss, and faith, all of which are interesting topics worth exploring. Unfortunately the story is too unwieldy to do any of these topics justice. The writing style is too weak and superficial to accomplish what the novel intends. I would have quit around the 20-page mark if I didn't need to leave a review, hence the one-star review.

The whole story suffers from too much telling and not enough showing. Characters will state details that the reader needs to accept as true, but nothing in the story backs them up. This affects character development as well, since we're just told what the characters are thinking and feeling instead of seeing them act that way in the story. This then carries over to the plot, where the major twists don't feel like they came from the characters' decisions and actions. The book seems like it was created when the author outlined the plot and then plugged stock characters into it, rather than a story written about how characters would naturally act under given circumstances. This is most apparent in the existence of Krystal, an actual child who exists only to help with Teddy's plot and at one point is solving problems for the adults.

In the very first chapter, Sylvie describes what all she is dreading about her day to justify taking a pain pill. This pill transforms her into a happy version of Sylvie who can cope with everything. But again, the reader is told this... we never get to see how Sylvie fails to cope with anything. The chapter could have been a stronger opening if we saw Sylvie struggle through a day before caving and deciding to self-medicate. And the pressure that Sylvie feels she is under usually resolves itself before long. She claims to feel pressure from her peers to be the perfect mom, but that never comes up in the story. She's stressed about planning her son's bar mitzvah, then her son requests a casual, relaxed party. Basically, everything meant to provide motivation feels contrived and invented to move the plot forward. This still makes the characters seem passive, since they're only reacting to events instead of causing them. Yet somehow the pace still goes from zero to sixty with little building, making the plot seem jarring.

There's a trend of details being included once, then never mentioned again, which causes the whole story to suffer. I thought Sylvie's dream about horses would be significant, but it never happens again and has no bearing on the rest of the story. Themes and ideas can't be developed this way, which creates a superficial story.

Speaking of superficial, every single character in this book could benefit from some self-reflection and critical thinking. At first I thought Sylvie was just super judgemental, but all three narrating characters focus on and make assumptions based on appearances. There's a lot of low- vs. higher-class judgement (none of it kind). Instead of exploring this topic, the story just presents it as a way to identify the family as middle class. And the characters never grow or better themselves as people, so this trend just annoyed me the whole time I was reading.

Overall the writing style is very amateur. I was honestly surprised when I realized this author had published other books, because this isn’t even the level of writing I was seeing from classmates in high school and early college. All three main characters stand in front of a mirror early in the story so they can describe their appearance to the reader. I haven't seen that in a published book in years, and associate this device with self-published work by very young authors. Any room a character enters gets the same treatment--a verbal tour for the reader--even if the furniture and layout of a room has no bearing on the plot.

There were also issues with dependent clauses throughout the book. I normally don't quote from ARCs because the material can change, but this sentence sums up most of the issues I found: "Partly covered so that Greg and Josh's kids could still play when it rained, that had been the goal of the deck, Paul remembered, as they stood in line for a drink."

That right there is the reason sentence diagramming needs to be taught in schools.

This reads like the first draft of an amateur writer. There's some heartwarming material hidden beneath everything else, but the book would need a total rewrite to tell that story.

[Laurel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zoe Fishman's novel, Invisible as Air, covers many worthy topics: grief, addiction, overspending, coming of age. The trouble I felt is that it didn't cover any of them particularly well. For me, Teddy's coming of age story hit the truest note and while Sylvie claims to feel as "invisible as air," it's Teddy who ultimately suffers this fate. Everything from the first page to the last seemed rushed. There was no building up to the issues facing the Snow family. And without the buildup, I was unable to feel the empathy for the characters I ordinarily would have, had she (the author) taken more time to develop the story. Yes, everyone handles tragedy and its accompanying grief differently, and certainly is the case with Sylvie, Paul, and Teddy, but too much was tackled and not enough adequately resolved for me to find this a satisfying book.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway, and in full disclosure, I had not read any previous works by Zoe Fishman, so I had no idea what to expect. The premise sounded intriguing, albeit a bit trite - a suburban housewife, Sylvie, who had repressed grief over the stillbirth of her daughter three years ago. On the morning of the anniversary of her daughter's death, when everything in her life seemed overwhelming, including her husband's broken ankle and her 12-year-old son's preteen behavior, she takes just one of her husband’s discarded pain pills. Almost instantly, she feels relaxed and is a patient, kinder Sylvie. She tells herself that the pills are temporary and that when they are gone, she’ll go back to her life as she knew it; however, days turn into weeks, and Sylvie slips slowly into a nightmare where her desperate choices reveal her hopeless state of mind, and she stands of the brink of losing everything dear to her.

I have to say that from the first chapter on, I was engrossed in Sylvie's life. Her character was relatable - from her irritation with her husband's broken ankle and listening to him whine, to her exasperation at having to attend PTA meetings and make nice with women she had nothing in common with - it all worked. The chapters are by character: Sylvie, her husband, Paul, and her son, Teddy. I thought all three characters were masterfully penned - even preteen Teddy - whose thought patterns seemed entirely consistent with an almost-13 year old, but still relevant and moving. I found myself rooting for all three members of the family, flaws and all.

The book is a well-written, powerful probe into one family's struggle with addiction and loss. My only gripe with the book was that I liked drug-addicted Sylvie a little too much. For much of the book, when under the influence, it seemed that Sylvie made better decisions, spoke up for herself and her family, and overall, became a more well-rounded person, which seemed a bit of a stretch to me. It wasn't until almost the end of the book, that the lines become blurred for her and she starts her foray into darkness and bad decisions. I also found the island/horse angle to be almost an afterthought and could have been omitted or tied in better (although it made the cover more understandable).

Final thoughts - I really embraced this book and will definitely be reading further works of Zoe Fishman. 4 stars.

[MountainAshleah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Audio. My experience doesn't match the many glowing reviews for this book. The character of sylvie just struck me as vicious and ugly. Her personal tragedy was too far in the narrative past and her behavior too spoiled and histrionic for me to care about her as a character. I only stuck with the narrative out of a curiosity for the pill popping. This aspect of the novel was well done but should have merited more space rather than the three character device, which didn't work for me at all. Her descent seemed too superficial; I would have preferred the focus on her total experience without the detour chapters about the son and husband, unconvincing characters that didn't interest me at all.

[Sherri Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Zoe Fishman book and I loved it! You’ve got your typical family with typical hardships and issues. How they all deal with those hardships and issues is the theme of the book. I actually laughed out loud the first third of the book, then the story got down to the seriousness of addictions. It shows how easy it is to slip out of control and no one is immune. This was a wonderful story and I highly recommend this book.

[Ally Mercado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grief, addiction, and a shattered family. It sounds like the ultimate downer, but Fishman finds a way to address the poignant themes in a relatable and often lighthearted way. The truth is, the Snows could be almost any family in America. Unresolved feelings, poor decisions, and kept secrets can creep into any home. Highly recommended for a different take on addiction.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

46 year old Sylvie Snow is a person that we all know. She could be your neighbor, your best friend or a family member. She is a hardworking wife and mother with a career and a myriad of stresses on her every day. As the novel begins, it's the three year anniversary of her daughter's stillbirth - something that she feels her husband doesn't care about even though it's a very painful day for her. On top of that, her husband is recuperating from a broken ankle and isn't able to help at all with cleaning or shopping plus she has to take care of him, along with everyone and everything else. When she is getting ready to start her day, she finds the bottle of pain pills that were prescribed for her husband that he had never taken and after mentally reviewing her life, she decides that she'll take one pill - just one and then she'll quit - to make this day more bearable. She tells herself that one pill won't matter and that she needs help getting through this day. But one pill quickly becomes two and then even more until she realizes that she needs the pills to survive. As she is heading for the bottom of her family life, her job and basically her sanity, she realizes that she has become addicted and the pills have become the only important thing in her life.

This family could be any family in upper class America. Addicts aren't just young people but the drug epidemic is rampant at all ages and all classes - it is happening everywhere. I found this book interesting because it looked at addiction in a 40 something female who appeared to have the good life before addiction changed everything for her and her family.

This was an interesting well written book about a family in trouble who don't share their thoughts and feelings with each other. Will they be able to learn to trust each other and become a family again?

Thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own.

[Cyndi Becker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a cautionary tale about the effects of an opioid addiction brought about, by the way this family, small and dysfunctional, deal with grief and growing estrangement. There are many moments where I found myself picking my jaw up off the floor. especially an action by Sylvie that ultimately brings about a new, fresher start. Great read and hard to put down.

[Emilie Haydel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won the uncorrected proof copy from a Goodreads giveaway and man oh man this is such an emotional book! 100% recommend!

Trigger warnings: miscarriage, still births, addiction

[Stacey Gross · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not entertaining per my definition, but it did make me feel. I view entertainment as something that makes me laugh and feel happiness. This book did neither of those things, but it did make me feel sad for our society. It made me feel distressed for the Teddys of the world who are being raised by unhealed adults, and hope those kids get the help they need before a generational cycle of dysfunction is created. This book is real, and perhaps that is what bothered me the most. It is a good book. It is just not the escape I am hoping for when I read.

[Anoushka Sharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s not my usual type of read at all but I couldn’t put it down

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book, now, for the #MaybeMidrash readathon on BookTube, which challenges us to read books having to do with religion. Technically, midrash in its most traditional Jewish form, is commentary on the Bible, but I figured I’d fudge things and stick to a book depicting a modern Jewish American family. I mean, at least there’d be a Bar Mitzvah in this thing, right? :P

As the story went on, it became clear that the Bar Mitzvah served as a built-in climax. Or, at least the central point to which climactic action would gravitate. Near the end, it wasn’t even a given that the Bar Mitzvah would actually happen. Since this is literary fiction and I’m averse to plot, I’ll go ahead and spoil that the event does in fact take place. :P I’m a little shady with Fishman on this, really. The one scene she depicts is the Torah reading: “The Rabbi stood behind [Teddy]. Just the two of them on the bimah…” really? No gabbai, no congregant (likely Teddy’s mother) taking Aliyah? Maybe Fishman didn’t want to confuse non-Jewish readers with these givens of the Torah service? Meeeeeh.

I’ll give Fishman a pass for Teddy’s sermon on his Bar Mitzvah project, in lieu of a D’var Torah talking about his portion. (Seems like neither Teddy nor I are in this book to interpret the Bible. :P) I’m just a little disappointed at the shoddy worldbuilding in this scene (of less import, we never get any evidence of Teddy actually practicing for this thing, either.) That being said, in the grand scheme of this novel, it’s all relatively small fry.

This is a story of trauma and addiction. Three years ago, the Snows—Sylvie, Paul and their son, Teddy—were about to become four. But Teddy’s sister, Delilah, was stillborn. Everyone’s been coping with this separately and not so well. Sylvie repressed her feelings. But then, after Paul breake his ankle and is prescribed oxycodone pills that he refuses to take, she slowly becomes an addict.

Elsewhere, Paul is over exercising and overspending, and Teddy is escaping to movies with their happy endings. Around the time Sylvie starts using (four months before the Bar Mitzvah,) he witnesses a car swiping incident and befriends a peer in one of the cars, Krystal. By “befriend,” I mean romance. I imagine some readers won’t like the sexual charge between these two (Teddy is still 12, after all. Krystal is 13.) I was a little surprised myself, until I thought back and remembered…I knew about sex in those days. And thought about it a lot. So, I’ll give credit to Fishman for not infantilizing her adolescents.

I fell for this story. I talked to the characters a lot, which is a good sign for me. I need more five-star novels this year! And yet…I still think Fishman relied too much on exposition. I was told a lot, chapter by chapter. It’s a hard line to navigate! This is a navel-gazey book, mostly about people in their own heads. In that vein, I can imagine that many readers would be completely turned off by Sylvie. Her head is filled with self-loathing, self-pity, misanthropy, guilt, and of course, denial. I’m more primed than most to give that sort of character a little sympathy, but even I, like Fishman admitted in her Q&A at the back of the book, often thought: “Dammit, Sylvie! You are such a self-involved mess!”

As a middle-to-upper class, white drug addict, there’s a lot of blowback that Sylvie will never face. She’s not in danger of police raids and punitive prosecution that I’ve been reading about in my BookTube Prize nonfiction. That being said, I’m also not the sort of reader who feels nothing for a character just because she has privilege. She’s still a fully fleshed out human. But when you read a lot, you tend to think about overlapping issues, too.

Final criticisms: I wish Paul’s debt issues were more of a character arc. Yeah, he was cutting up (some) credit cards and trying to sell his garage of junk, but we never so much saw a “last notice” bill. I think it would have served the story better for this to be a source of immediate, active tension.

Also: I wish Sylvie’s parents weren’t so hideous. I can stand unlikeable characters but not one-dimensional ones. Also: isn’t that a lot of Yiddish for 2019 Jewish grandparents to throw around? Isn’t that too old school? Oh, right—my mom’s best friend from Pikesville. :P /Baltimore Jew humor

And with regards to religion, there was one moving passage between Teddy and one of the residents of the senior home he volunteered at. Will probably talk more about it in a #MaybeMidrash video coming soon!

[Myrna Gottlieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won a free uncorrected proof of this novel from Library Thing in exchange for an honest review, I enjoyed reading this tale about a wife, Sylvie Snow, now in her mid-40s, who for years had dedicated her life to pleasing her handsome husband Paul - being a perfect wife and a perfect mother for their quirky 12-year-old son, Teddy. Sylvie kept herself beautiful, moisturized daily, bought expensive clothes, perfumes, jewelry,luggage; she had expensive manicures and pedicures at the best salon, drove a beautiful expensive car, and kept their lives meticulously organized in a beautiful home designed and built by her contractor husband and decorated by herself. But she is falling apart.
As the novel opens, Sylvie is exhausted by the effort; she hates and resents her life- the grocery shopping, the laundry, the car pools, the PTA. The honeymoon is over; sex, once spectacular, is routine or non-existent. And she has a job which she hates but brings in much needed money to support their expensive lifestyle.
What has changed is that three years ago, tragedy had struck. A much anticipated second child- a miracle girl who they’d named Delilah, had been born dead- a month premature and stillborn. The three of them grieved, but after three months of mourning, father and son tried to move on with their lives. Sylvie, holding fast onto her grief resented them for it , but would not discuss it,.
After the baby’s death and Sylvie’s estrangement, Paul, had become a health and exercise nut. As the novel begins, he had just fallen during his daily team bike ride and broken his ankle. Sylvie resented his neediness, which made even more work for her- helping him shower, dress, etc. before she left for work. The son Teddy was also a problem. He was a nerdy kid, not popular at school, a bookworm who spent hours in front of the TV watching and re-watching his collection of classic movies. Sylvie had insisted he become bar mitzvah (she’d raised him Jewish in a mixed marriage- Paul’s family was southern Baptist; Paul was agnostic) So another chore to add to Sylvie’s overfilled plate- planning a bar mitzvah for a disinterested boy.
.
How did Sylvie cope? On the 3-year anniversary of Delilah’s death, when she felt she couldn’t face even one more day, she tried just one of her husband’s unused prescription pain pills. And another. And another. The description of opioid addiction is believable and powerful.

I would rate this novel 3 out of 5 stars. I enjoyed Ms Fishman’s lively writing- many sentences made me laugh out loud. But I didn’t believe in or like her characters. The son Teddy’s relationship with Phoebe, a taller cooler non-conformist girlfriend- done better by Nick Hornby in “About A Boy.” Teddy’s philosophic conversations re becoming a man and pubic hairs with Morty, his elderly male best friend in an assisted living facility- not believable and boring. The husband Paul cried too much and insisted that even though he had carried on a brief email flirtation with a younger woman, he would never ever be unfaithful to his wife no matter what -I don’t buy it. And the main character, Sylvie, was so self-involved that I didn’t much like her, wasn’t rooting for her the way I did for Nora Ephron’s aggrieved yuppie wife Rachel in “Heartburn.”

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Invisible as Air by Zoe Fishman is a story about Sylvie and Paul Snow and their 12 year old son, Teddy. The family is grieving their daughter, Delilah, who was stillborn three years ago. Unfortunately, Sylvie and Paul are so deeply immersed in their own grief and are just going through the motions, while their son Teddy is stuck in the middle of a very unhappy family, also dealing with his own grief.
One day, to help her cope, Sylvie takes one the pain killers that Paul has been prescribed for his broken ankle. From there, the reader watches helplessly as this family is torn apart further as Sophie develops an addiction that spirals out of control. The story alternates between the viewpoints of Sylvie, Paul and Teddy and at the beginning I admit that I chuckled at some of the observations of each character. However, this story quickly became very serious and heartbreaking. My heart went out to this family who had grown so far apart that they had lost completely lost sight of what they still had. There were a couple of real heroes in this book - The 12 year old son, Teddy, was just a sweet, loving boy who desperately wanted his family back. Teddy’s 13 year old friend Krystal was a firecracker who was wise beyond her years. Then there was a man named Morty who you meet a little later in the book so I won’t tell you anything about him except that I adored him. I love family stories so I loved this one although I found it a difficult read as well as I was so sad for this family who could easily be your neighbour, your friend, or even you. This is my first book by this author but I will definitely be looking up more of her books. I thought it was beautifully written and I had a hard time putting it down until I finished it. This would make an excellent book club selection in my opinion.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of the Snow family could be your neighbors’ story or the story of your friends, or even that of your own family.

Sylvie Snow has not been same since the stillbirth of her daughter Delilah three years previously. Now she is preparing for her son Teddy’s upcoming bar mitzvah. On top of this her husband Paul has broken his ankle and his whining and neediness is grating on her nerves. Finally one day Sylvie just can’t take it anymore and takes one of Paul’s Hydrocodone pills. Under the influence of the pills she is calmer and kinder to her family. She likes how they make her feel so begins taking them just to get her through the bar mitzvah. She knows Paul will never notice as he refused to take any of the pills and had told her to throw them out. Thus starts her desperate cycle of addiction. Paul has his own issues dealing with the emptiness he has felt since the loss of his daughter. Teddy discovers the secrets his parents are hiding and is conflicted as to what to do.

Using alternating perspectives of Sylvie, Paul, and Teddy the reader is drawn into the story and becomes invested in the lives of the Snow family. I liked the character of Sylvie. I could relate to the stress she was dealing with on top of the grieving she never fully allowed herself to embrace. Having worked with some gang member kids previously I could understand Teddy’s position in the family – feeling he had to be the parent to his parents. It was a really heavy load for a young teen to bear.

A hauntingly realistic story relevant to today’s social environment. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to LibraryThing and William Morrow Books for the advance reading copy. All views expressed are my honest opinion.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5* review to come

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I picked up this book on a whim and I think what really stood out to me was the fact that Sylvie being addicted to pain pills and her experience was something that could happen to anyone. She was clearly repressing her grief from the loss of her stillborn child as well as the stress from her job, the expectations from her family now that her husband is recovering from a broken foot and just being a mother in general. However, as the book continued, I found myself really resenting her. Some of the actions that she started to take just to get her next fix was becoming more and more horrible. And the fact that she knew she shouldn't do it but did it anyway was what annoyed me.

I also couldn't care too much about the other two POVs (her husband and son). Her husband's POV, in particular, was dull and I honestly couldn't care less about him at all. However, her son's POV had some random intriguing points when he found out about his mom's addiction and his struggle with how to cope and if he had to intervene.

Overall, I thought that this book was just okay. The beginning started off a bit slowly, then it got really interesting but then I got annoyed with Sylvie.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sylvie Snow gave birth to her stillborn daughter three years ago and she's still grieving but it seems like her husband Paul and almost thirteen year old son Teddy have long since moved on with their lives. She feels stuck and invisible in this family, so while she's planning her son's Bar Mitzvah and nursing her husband with a broken ankle back to health, she decides to take one of her husband's painkillers. Suddenly, she feels lighter and kinder to everybody. She tells herself she's only going to take them until the Bar Mitzvah; but as we all know, it's never that easy. Soon, her life turns from a drugged out bliss into a nightmare and all three of them are forced to deal with the fall out.

I had never heard of this book but my IRL bookclub chose this as the January book club pick. Once again, I'm thankful for fellow readers for recommending good books that I would normally not pick up. This book read like a thriller to me. I kept flipping the pages to see what she would do when she ran out of pills and if she would eventually get caught. It just goes to show that a seemingly normal middle class family may have a lot of hidden secrets. Also, I don't know much about the opioid crisis aside from what I hear on the news occasionally but now I want to learn more to educate myself. Please leave me suggestions if you have any!

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to LibraryThing and Wm. Morrow (Harper Collins) for this ARC.

I really liked this book about a Jewish family (I have a tendency for them) and how messed up their lives were after Paul and Sylvie lost their baby 3 years ago and how it affected them all. Sylvie is a hot mess and she becomes very annoying as she takes more Oxycodone and hides it from her family and how she begs, borrows, and steals from her husband and goes to drastic measures to get it from a cco-worker and her husband's friend. She was not likeable and annoying throughout the book for me. She blames her addiction (though she will not admit it) not only on the anniversary of their baby's death but also of her son Teddy's upcoming bar-mitzvah and she swears she'll stop taking it after that event. It was just an excuse obviously.

I loved Teddy the most and how he met Krystal his girlfriend while walking to school one day when he witnessed an accident. She convinces him that working at an animal shelter doing his mitzvah for his upcoming bar-mitzvah) is not for him (he's not an animal lover to begin with) and convinces him to work at a retirement home where her mom works running movies. He becomes friends with the residents while there.

[Jill Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Invisible As Air, we follow the woeful tales of the Snow family: Sylvie, who becomes an opioid addict; her husband, Paul, who has a shopping addiction; and their son, Teddy, who is trying to navigate the seas of puberty, while knowing secrets about his parents.

To be honest, I didn't like the adult characters in this book, though I sympathized with their issues. They were unlikeable to me - maybe because I didn't know more about their backgrounds. It would have been interesting to read this story only from Teddy's perspective.

I did appreciate Zoe Fishman's look into opioid addiction - an infliction that's affecting more and more Americans - and the perils of families who are trying hard to "keep up with the Joneses" (much to their own detriment). She showed how quickly one could become addicted - and why someone would "had everything" on the outside would turn to drugs to fix her life.

If you like modern stories about family relationships, you may want to check out Invisible As Air.

(I received an Advanced Reader's Copy through LibraryThing in exchange for my honest review.)

[Sharon B. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I struggled to finish this book. I got it because the premise was interesting but it was just an awful read. The main character Sylvie...really didn't connect or like her. I get addiction can happen that fast but the chapter where she prostitutes herself to David for his pills, seemed completely rushed and too early into her addiction to have happened like that. She was just an awful person in general. I also hated the dialogue the author wrote. Who talks that way, especially the 12 years olds? The dialogue between Teddy and Krystal (did not like her at all either) just didn't ring true for their age...maybe if they were in high school but 12? Nah. The David reveal at the end seemed like it was just thrown in there to alert Paul to it but for him to just spit it out like that? Nah..Normally I'd be wondering if Sylvie and Paul reconciled at the end since it's not known. I didn't care. Terrible read.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m giving this book 4 stars because I just couldn’t put it down even though the subject matter bothered me and i disagreed with it. Reading it was like a reality show I couldn’t take my eyes away from. I’ve had back pain, surgeries etc for almost 10 years now and can not live my daily life unfortunately without medicines so to think that this book is implying that taking certain medication you become a prostitute or lying and cheating and overall a bad person is just wrong. These meds allow me to function and are not abused and prescribed by my doctor on a regular basis, I don’t chase the high of any other drugs or vet high from these pills nor have I ever. I understand the epedemic and it’s made my life harder because the doctor has to jump through more hoops for me but this isn’t my life. Like I said I did enjoy the book and the characters I liked except for Paul he was annoying.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

How easy is it to slip in addiction? Very. And this book does a great job of showing a family slowly dissolving under the weight of Sylvie's addiction (which she's sure she's hiding well) and how son Teddy and husband Paul cope with that as well as their own issues. Making this a solidly upper-middle class family drives home how easily these things can happen, how they're not confined to rural lower class families, makes the rather soap-operaesque plot more relevant to readers.

ARC provided by publisher.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profound grief leads to several forms of addiction in this heartbreaking family drama. Sylvie has her pills, her husband has his obsessive shopping, and young Teddy is trapped in the middle. All three of the Snows are relatable, with Teddy, of course, being the most sympathetic. His plight is sad and all too common. Through this trio of broken people, Fishman gives us a poignant, realistic picture of a family falling apart which is both eye-opening and moving. I found it as compelling as it was depressing.

[Becca Godwin]

https://www.ajc.com/entertainment/boo...

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intense and real

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite quote: “It seemed to Teddy that that was the true hallmark of adulthood: being secretly screwed up while appearing completely normal and productive. Great.”

[Paige Stewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Invisible As Air is a confusing novel to review. This is primarily because for a vast majority of the novel, the plot is kind of a slog. Sylvie is miserable and angry and taking pills that—what do you know—make her dull. Paul is unaware and addicted to shopping, which is truly annoying. And Teddy is twelve. By far the easiest character to root for, he spends half the time dealing with twelve year old problems; in a novel about adult issues, these are uninteresting. He spends the other half dealing with addiction problems, which is annoying and makes him unrealistically mature. In the final quarter, the speed is dialed up from 4mph to about 30, giving the reader a whiplash experience as Sylvie is fired, confronted by her thirteen year old son, and revealed to her husband. Immediately after, their very intelligent son runs away, and the parents’ search for him is emotional and energetic: one of the first times we really feel a sense of involvement (and empathy) for the characters. I am the first to say that more than thirty percent of a book has to be great for the book to be considered great, but I can’t deny that the final section does elicit emotion and care for the family as a unit.

Invisible As Air neatly pins Sylvie as the sympathetic fuck up. Driven to her emotional limit by the disconnection with her growing son, the unprocessed grief of her stillbirth, and her husband’s self absorption and dependence, we understand why she takes the first pill. When she continues taking them, we mix our understanding of her life with our understanding of substance abuse and further accept that, by her fault or the fault of countless forces, she reasonably slips into addiction. But after a while, as we delve further into understanding Paul, we start to wonder if her self victimization is so fair. Can we not identify that his commitment to exercise and his interest in obtaining all of the tools for that exercise are addictions as well? We frame these as excessive, or committed, or a problem financially, but we ignore that the inability to say no to a purchase or disallow a hobby to impede the freedom of those around you very, very closely resembles substance abuse as we know it. And we discover that he is driven to this addiction by Sylvie, the way she is driven to hers by him. So, can we cheer for either?

Teddy, alone, remains truly sympathetic—albeit precocious—but we also know he is in a situation he cannot win, so what’s the point of reading just to find out if he gets shorted in a way that is mildly less awful than another way?

Finally, Krystal is a therapist disguised as a thirteen year old. Delete her.

This wasn’t a bad read, and it’s a good exploration of how regular people can find their worlds destroyed by addiction. But for enjoyment’s sake? This was not the choice.