Rating: 
Summary: Tyler's characterization is surrealistic
Review: As I was reading others' reactions to this novel, I found that many complained about Maggie's annoying character and how her scatterbrainedness seemed to detract from the story. Although I have to agree that this character enraged me at points in the story, I would also like to inform these critics that IF AN AUTHOR CAN CHARACTERIZE A PERSON IN THE STORY SO WELL THAT A READER IS REPULSED BY HER, SHE CERTAINLY DESERVES RECOGNITION, and this is the conclusion I have come to in my process of assessing this novel for my English class. Yes, it went slow; yes, the characters were sometimes aggravating. But Tyler's books are some of the most skillfully written which I have ever had the experience of reading. She reinforces the sacred institution that marriage is, gives us a model in Ira's patience, and shows us how important a person at whom you can, as Serena told Maggie, steal a glance when others are bothering you and you can't complain out loud. Rather than complaining because this book isn't the shallow, exciting "story" that typical readers expect, let's praise Anne Tyler for her skill.
Rating: 
Summary: An utter, irritating bore
Review: I was recently on a business trip and found myself without a book to help me pass the hours on the plane. I bought Breathing Lessons thinking it would help me feel better about living an ordinary life. I was right all along -- ordinary IS boring. I would have abandoned the book in the middle had I not been captive on a plane.
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Summary: One endlessly long episode of "I Love Lucy"
Review: Although I enjoyed this book at first(I laughed out loud a few times), I soon began to tire of what I realized was one endlessly long episode of "I Love Lucy", right down to Ira's hair and skin color. We're supposed to love Maggie the way we loved Lucy, but frankly I tired of Lucy at an early age--mostly because she represented women as befuddled nitwits who couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper sack. I'd like to see more books on the Pulitzer Prize list with female protagonists who are not helpless, pathetic and devoid of lives.
Rating: 
Summary: Surprised that I didn't like it as I love her other books
Review: Having read her other books I thought that I'd enjoy Breathing Lessons. I struggled, found the people irritating and remembered it as a disappointment. I tried again recently, thinking it would seem better now I wasn't expecting it to be good, but I couldn't even finish it this time, I was so bored!
Rating: 
Summary: A good book!
Review: This book really shows how the "ordinary" can be extraordinary. Maggie, while annoying at times, is a real person, and nearly everyone either has been her or has known someone like her. She's idealistic while Ira, her husband, is practical, yet they've been together for nearly 30 years. They're not the perfect family, yet they're not so outrageous that they're not real. This book made me laugh, out loud sometimes. But what makes this book so good is its characters and Anne Tyler's ability to really get into them.
Rating:
Summary: Relearning to breathe
Review: The amusing title of the book led me to further reading. This seemingly mundane plot reveals that we all need lessons or at least a re-learning in life of what we deem we know by heart. Tyler also makes brilliant use of dialogues and symbolisms that pop up naturally throughout the novel revealing that she is by her rights a prized writer.
Rating:
Summary: I enjoyed this book.
Review: This is the first Anne Tyler I've read since Accidental Tourist. I like her humor. The main character probably would annoy many people, but I guess I saw myself and others in parts of her quirks. It was a "fun" read. Not deep, not enthralling, just fun.
Rating:
Summary: Parts were good but most were bad
Review: The character Maggies is one of the most annoying characters I've read. I kept wishing that someone would just tell her to mind her own business. Definitely not one of Tyler's best.
Rating:
Summary: A story portraying simplistic things in an extraordinary way
Review: This was my first time reading an Anne Tyler novel and it was a good read. The book displays an ordinary couple, Ira and Maggie Moran, a typical American family and illustrates the complexity, the aggressions and loneliness of a family and what becomes of their relationship in the end. I would recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt lonely.
Rating:
Summary: An intriguing exhortation to discernment.
Review: In a society where approximately forty percent of marriages end in divorce, Breathing Lessons presents a couple, Maggie and Ira Moran, two totally opposite individuals, who have weathered the proverbial storms for twenty-eight years. The remarkable thing about the storms is that most of them are of Maggie's making, as she confesses, "It's all my fault, I set everything pell-mell in motion not once considering the consequences." Maggie's pell-mell walk through life keeps taking her on decisive detours into other people's lives and often makes the already rubbled paths even more impassable. At the end of the book when Maggie is forced to realize that her attempts to put life's problems in neat, little packages with decorative bows are futile, she despondently asks, "Oh, Ira...what are we two going to live for, all the rest of our lives?" Her question, archetypally significant, is answered by a powerful image as her husband plays his game of solitaire. "He had passed that early, superficial stage when any number of moves seemed possible and now his choices were narrower and he had to show real skill and judgment." So it is with Maggie; so it is with us
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