Tuesday 6 November 2012

Breathe - Sarah Crossan


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

2 comments:

  1. Loved this, and yes I agree with you about Quinn :)

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  2. Sounds 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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