Sunday 17 August 2014

Breathe



Breathe
Sarah Crossan
London, Bloomsbury, 2012, 371p

I have been trying to read this for the last few days, with little success. I am unsure if it is because it is the holidays and I have switched off, or because the book isn't all I wanted it to be, but I have not gotten very far.

One hundred pages in, the characters are introduced and the plot is established, but I am not gripped. Alina, part of a rebel group, is forced to escape the city in which she has always lived. Here, oxygen is a gift, divided according to a strict social divide, which leaves many without enough air to lead a normal life. The state is catching up with the rebel group, and Alina must get away. On the city borders, she is helped by a Premium boy, one of the rich and fortunate, and together they escape into the unknown outside the Pod. 

Already, the path of their story seems clear, paralleling many of the tropes of the multitude of other dystopian novels currently available. On reading the blurb, I loved the concept of this novel, but the initial pace felt slow and I could not engage with the characters and their trials. 

Perhaps I just need a holiday and will return to it in the future. 

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