Sunday 15 May 2016

Resist by Sarah Crossan (Breathe #2


Goodreads rating: 3.72 stars

My Rating- 3 stars

Disclaimer- There are some small spoilers in this. Proceed at your own risk...

Reading this was like going to a fair for the first time as a child, oooh colours, look a clown, a horse, balloons. So many things but no time to make any sense of them.
There was sooooooo much going on. Half the time I couldn't even tell who were bad guys and who were the good guys. Evil people come out come out wherever you are.
This is the second book in the Breathe series and it completely lost the engaging quality of the first book. It was almost as if reading an entirely new book. It was as though the author wasn't sure where the story was going so took it in five different directions. Like standing at a fork in a road but somehow we end ou on all the paths like what how did I get here. In Breathe the  the plot centred on Breathe and the pod vs the resistance. It made sense, the characters had a goal. They had an enemy. There was a fight to each character, a determination. Which gave a connection point for the readers. This was lacking in Resist. I wanted to engage with the characters, to hope for them, to fight with them. But most of the time I didn't even know what they were fighting for.
Having four different narrators made the story difficult to follow. Though it allows the reader to see four different aspects of the story , it meant there was very little depth. Each scene felt limited and somewhat forced.
Each of the main characters, Bea, Quinn, Ronan and Alina seemed to change throughout the entirety of the novel. It was not as if they developed as characters but rather in each chapter they seemed a different character all together. This was the same with the character relationships. Quinn and Bea are supposedly in love, but their connection felt forced. I didn't fall for them as a couple. When a relationship between characters is well developed, it flows, its natural, you believe it. You can see these two people together, you ache for their happiness. You pine for their relationship. But with Quinn and Bea the relationship made no sense. They didn't seem in love. I felt the connection more strongly between Ronan and Bea, though their relationship wasn't really explored. From their very first encounter, I was pleading to my fairy godmother that they would get together, I felt them as a couple, I mean come on if they were together they would totally be #couplegoals, like I would squeal.
There was just too much packed into this one short story. Too many good guys, too many bad guys, too many changes, too many characters. So everything lacked depth. It didn't make sense to me that Crossan completely abandoned the resistance storyline. Though the resistance suffered a great loss at the end of the first novel, there was still potential. I didn't see the need to completely write out Petra, the resistance leader. Though the cause of the resistance did somewhat carry on with Alina and Silias it didn't hold power over me the way it had in the first novel.
It baffled me that Crossan ditched the conflict between the Pod and the resistance and instead brought in the Resistance base in Sequoia. This created a whole other conflict for the characters. They already had an enemy, with those aligned with breathe and the Pod minister. The Sequoia plot completely changed the direction of the novel. It seemed unnecessary. There was already enough between the Pod and the Resistance to create an engaging action packed story. I felt the book was packed with too many things. So though it was somewhat enjoyable to read there were just too many things happening, there was nothing to connect to.
I rated Resist 3 stars because apparently I was feeling extra nice. Thinking back on it this is really probably only a 2. I did kind of enjoy reading this for some odd reason considering how much I actually hated it. That literally makes no sense.... good one Shania, all the logic.
I probably won't continue with this series, I don't really care enough about any of the characters or relationships to want to see what happens. I advise you Resist reading this, ha ha ha (terrible pun Shania get out)

Let me know your thoughts,
Shania Rose x

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