Breathe – Sarah
Crossan
Pages:
371
Publisher:
Bloomsbury
Release
Date: 11th
October 2012
Edition:
UK proof,
review copy
When
oxygen levels plunge in a treeless world, a state lottery decides which lucky
few will live inside the Pod. Everyone else will slowly suffocate.
Years
after the Switch, society is divided into Premiums and Auxilaries. Only
Premiums can afford enough oxygen to live a normal life. Dissenters to the
regime are ejected from the Pod.
Alina
belongs to a rebel group. On the verge of capture, she is rescued by a Premium
boy and together they escape from the Pod – with just two days worth of air.
Outside
they unearth conspiracy on a breathtaking level. But can they survive long
enough to tell anyone?
Breathe
is the first
book in Sarah Crossan’s dystopian trilogy and in a saturated market, it held
its own.
The mythology behind this dystopia
of Breathe is an interesting and
entirely plausible one. The idea behind The Pod was only explained once and
rather briefly so if you weren’t reading quickly or got distracted it would
have been easy to miss as it wasn’t repeated or referred to again. I did think
that the conspiracy around The Pod and their ‘perfect’ community was revealed
too soon. There was no real shock or surprise when it was made known and I thought
this took something out of the story.
Breathe
is written in
a three-way narrative, the chapters split between Alina, Bea and Quinn. All three
characters are very different and their voices were clear and easily
distinguishable. I loved kick-ass Alina who learnt to trust her friends and
lovable Bea whose world was turned upside down, but I didn’t click with Quinn
at first. He was just rather wet to begin with. Thankfully, he grew and changed
in to the guy willing to risk his life for the cause and I admit that it’s entirely
possible that I’ll fall for him as the series progresses.
Breathe
was a quick
and easy read that I flew through. I’ll be interested to read the sequel.
Thank you to Bloomsbury for providing
me with a review copy.
Sophie
Loved this, and yes I agree with you about Quinn :)
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting. I have been featuring all dystopia this month. Maybe I can squeeze in one more. Thank you for the great review.
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