Published by Bloomsbury, review by Lesley Finlay
Sarah Crossan won acclaim and awards a-plenty for her novel in verse The Weight of Water. Her next major venture is a series in the dystopian literature genre which is set in a world where air is regulated and used as a means of ordering society.
The first, Breathe, sets the scene – bleak landscapes in the style of George Orwell’s 1984 and immediate introduction on how the family in which you are born can dictate the path of life. Oxygen levels have plunged as trees have died off and a lottery decided who would live or die. The winners join a society as either an Auxiliary or Premium, the others scratch a living outside the pod – or die.
There is a way for auxiliaries to climb the social ladder: our heroine Bea pitches for a place in the Breathe Leadership Programme through a debating final against her friend, the Premium candidate Quinn. She loses; and the pair decide to leave the pod for a day out – except they end up aiding Alina, a fiery rebel group leader to escape.
What follows is a rattling good adventure, violent and heart-breaking, with well-drawn main characters and gruesome villains – not to mention some gripping twists in the tale. Among the main characters there is someone for everyone: the humane Quinn, trying to do the right thing; the passionate Alina and the more reasonable Bea.
I cannot wait for part two – Resist, which is out this autumn.