Breathe (Breathe, 1)

The world is barren of trees. Ocean has been polluted so bad it no longer produces oxygen. The planet has suffocated. Then, along comes the BREATHE corporation to save humanity from extinction, building a safe, air-controlled glass dome of protection within which everyone can survive.But at what cost?Breathe, but Sarah Crossan, takes place in a world that is on the brink of death. People who don’t obey the laws are sent outside the glass dome to suffocate without air and die. Others wear oxygen tanks outside to remind themselves why they live the way they do and to remember what happened during the Switch when humanity nearly went extinct.We follow three teenagers: Bea — a lower class girl who just wants to help further society and uphold its laws; Quinn — an upper-class Premium who believes in the status quo, and is also best friends with Bea; and Alina — a lower class girl who works for the Resistance gathering tree clippings to grow them outside the dome and free everyone from air tax and oppression.In an unusual set of circumstances, these three find themselves venturing outside the dome together. Alina is trying to get her clippings to the head of the Resistance. Quinn and Bea are on a camping trip with oxygen tanks to spare, thanks to Quinn’s Premium resources. But what they discover together as they enter this brave new world is that nothing is what they thought. Alina learns that she has to bend and accept that not all Premiums are evil. Quinn discovers that his father isn’t who he thought he was and he has to choose how to handle this information and his Premium station. Bea learns that everything they’ve been taught as children is wrong, and BREATHE is taking advantage of the people.The characters are compelling and beautifully written. The plot is well-organized and kept me engaged from the first chapter through the last. Breathe is an amazing story that just might take your breath away. The whole thing was addicting and I couldn’t put the book down.Breathe challenges us to consider what we are doing to the planet in a way that isn’t in-your-face and sets the stage beautifully for a tragic ending.If you haven’t read Breathe, by Sarah Crossan, you don’t know what you are missing. This would even make a stunning movie (hint, hint).

In a nutshell, the story starts with the premise that the world was overpopulated. In order to feed this population, the forests were cleared, and crops were planted. They felt even with deforestation that the oceans would still supply an adequate supply of oxygen to support life on earth, but the chemicals from crop run-off killed the oceans. This resulted in an inadequate supply of oxygen to support the earth. Populations began to die. The oxygen supply in the atmosphere plummeted. The Breathe Corporation created domes for a small segment of the population to live in; however, the people, who live on the inside, are charged for the oxygen they breathe. The poor are barely provided an adequate supply of oxygen to live.Alina is a member of the resistance. It isn't readily apparent what the resistance goals are beyond planting trees in a stadium. This is because their only goal is to plant trees in a stadium. Alina's partner is exposed during an excursion to get clippings from a tree. It became obvious that Alina had also been exposed as a member of the resistance. Alina must escape the dome and go live with Petra in the tree stadium.Quin is one of the rich premiums. His family can easily afford air for 4 children. His best friend is Bea, a poor girl also known as an auxiliary. Quin knows that Bea likes him as more than a friend, but he is more interested in other girls. Quin makes a lot of immature choices and easily falls in love. He ends up helping Alina escape because she is HOT. He follows her because she is HOT.Bea is an auxiliary or a poor person who cannot afford adequate air. The poor are always kept poor, so there is no way for her to improve her lot in life. She is portrayed as super smart, but she loves Quin, who always chooses other girls over her. When Quin follows Alina, she follows him, even though she knows this is stupid.If we can just plant enough trees, all will be well in the world again. We can live outside the domes. If this was all that was needed, why weren't people out there planting trees like mad men before the domes had to be put up? Wouldn't it had been much easier to have every person all over the world start clippings and planting those clippings when they hit maturity? The problem with giving a simple answer to fix the world's ills is that this simple answer could have been applied to the same problem much earlier.I have another problem with the solution just being planting trees. While I am by no means an expert on the world's ecosystems, I do know enough to realize that the only problem would not be lack of oxygen and cold once these ecosystems are destroyed. While I realize the author is not a scientist and this is a YA book, I hate when problems are dumbed down. Let's apply a little logic just for one moment. We would have to assume that a lot of air breathers or organisms involved in aerobic respiration would be lost. We would not just loose animals, but we would lose microorganisms involved in decomposition and insects. This means the available nutrient load in the system would lessen. Also, only anaerobic microorganisms would have the ability to thrive, and the may be giving off poisonous gases in higher quantities. We could possibly see an increase in carbon monoxide, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide and methane in the air. These gases are poisonous to humans. There would still be nitrogen, carbon dioxide and oxygen production, but it is questionable to what extent. The ozone could have changed, and we may no longer be protected from the deadly sun's rays. Atmospheric pressure may have changed. The world may be very cold when the sun sets and very warm when the sun rises. It may no longer rain, and water may no longer be potable. And it is highly doubtful that the topsoil has an adequate nutrient supply for any plant life to grow. Therefore, the planting and growing of trees anyplace is unlikely. Don't you just hate logic?In the dome, they are stealing clippings and planting them. Where are they stealing the soil from? They would have had to make the dome air tight, which means there would be a limited amount of soil in the dome.Anyway, it is clear that I have a problem with the premise behind the book and the resistance.Next, I really hate it when a stupid love triangle is thrown in. This particular triangle dumbed down Bea and Quin. It just screams, look how stupid we are. It makes it less believable that Quin would make the choices he does later in the book. The story literally went, I think Alina is pretty. I am going to break rules for her and follow her, because she has pretty green eyes and spoke to me condescendingly ONCE. It makes it less than believable that Quin will later make altruistic and intelligient choices. Bea never gets any smarter in the story, so I had a problem liking her as anything more than a doormat mooning over Quin. I also could not get into Alina. Maybe, it was because all the resistance did was take tree cuttings. OOOH, how exciting?And the ending, there is really enough oxygen to breathe outside the dome? Where did this magic oxygen come from? They were super enriching the oxygen inside the dome? What was this? Wow, this was messy, weird, and unrealistic; especially, when it was made clear that Breathe was killing any vegetation that would crop up outside.So, what was good about the book? The characters and book were well-written. And I did like Maude. The ending of the book was much better than the beginning. It gave me hope that the characters could be a better read. While there is no overcoming that this book was based on a bad premise, it is okay if you can come to ignore this fact.

This book has been on my radar for a while now because I love dystopian/post-apocalyptic novels! It was available for under £2 for Kindle so I caved and bought it. Breathe tells the story of several characters living in a pod city due to the lack of oxygen in the environment.The book is told from multiple perspectives - Quinn, a rich kid whose parents can afford to keep him supplied with plenty of oxygen, Bea who comes from a poor family who can't afford to waste oxygen, and Alina who is part of the resistance movement building against the government and Breathe Corporation who control the oxygen supply. I love stories told from multiple points of view and I think it really added something to this book because the three main characters were so different.Of these characters, Alina was by far my favourite. She was really determined and I felt her desire to do what was right. I think it helped that from the very beginning the resistance is introduced. In most dystopian novels there's usually a wait for the main character to join the rebels so it was great to jump in with that so early on. I loved the whole storyline of the resistance too, especially the bits of the story that take place outside of the pod. I thought the whole issue of the importance of value of trees was really interesting and definitely made me reflect as I read the story, as well as the issues the characters face because of their class and financial situations.One of the best things about Breathe was that is was British! And set in Britain. Pretty much all the dystopians I read are set in America but having it set in the UK made it infinitely more relatable, both the locations and the way the characters spoke. It just really stood out for me when I compared it to other books I've read and felt so refreshing.I'd read some reviews of Breathe before starting it, and I was expecting the romance element to take more of a focus in the story and for there to be some sort of love triangle involved. In reality, romance kind of took a backseat, or at least I wasn't really focusing on it too much as I read. There is something there as Bea has to deal with her feelings for best friend Quinn, who in turn seems to be crushing on Alina, but Alina seemed to have no interest in him and to me it was just a school boy crush and that was that.That part of the story only became a problem for me because I just couldn't warm to Quinn as a character. I didn't see what Bea saw in him, and thought her pining after him was a bit wasted because he came across as a bit of a prat to me! He comes from a privileged background but I don't think that had anything to do with my dislike for him, but there was just something off about him that stopped me connecting with him during the course of the story. It might have been the fact that at the very beginning of the book we're introduced to a character called Abel who seemed quite interesting, but who disappeared quite early on and didn't take on a main role in the book. I would much rather have read more from him.The pacing of Breathe was spot on and there was a perfect combination of suspense and action that kept me turning the pages. I loved how all the individual stories fitted together. It had all the elements to a great dystopian novel and I'm really excited to read the sequel!This review was also posted on my blog.

Breathe takes place in a world where the oxygen levels dropped so low, because there were no trees left, that a glass Pod was created. The lucky people chosen to live inside the Pod had their names drawn from the state lottery. The rest were left to suffocate.The story takes place years after The Switch and has three main characters; Alina who is part of the resistance, Quinn who is a Premium with a father high up in the government and has never had to worry about how much oxygen he breathes, and Bea an Auxiliary whose parents work hard so that she has enough air.I enjoyed this book but not as much as I thought I would. I liked the premise but would have liked to have been told more about The Switch and how the Pod was made. Bea was my favourite character and I liked that the book was told from Alina, Quinn and Bea's point of views. Overall this was an enjoyable book with some twists that I didn't see coming.

It's a resounding "yes" from me for Breathe, which I only bought on a whim and was glad I did!For fans of young adult dystopian thrillers that can still hold the attention of an adult audience and not borrow too much from the big players of recent years (The Hunger Games etc.,) "Breathe" has it all.It is fresh, original, dark and detailed, building strongly upon the characters and layers that begin the tale, and carrying through on its promise at the finish.This book has the perfect balance, offering enough depth, detail and intrigue to keep you thinking, without ever over-playing its hand and losing the reader with irrelevant fine details or overly wordy descriptions.A very underrated book so far that I strongly recommend.

This could have been so much better. The beginning is quite interesting, and the whole idea of the story not bad at all. But it appears that the main resistance hides out in a football stadium a stone's throw from the city under the dome, and the oxygen company's sophisticated means of tracking/killing haven't found them before? And then a handful of rebels make a stand? At least they lose (sorry to be giving the storyline away), opening the way for a sequel...which I won't be reading.

I absolutely loved this book, and I read it cover to cover in one day. The only flaw is that it's very short, but the story makes up for that. The characters are particularly likeable, the story is believable, and the cover is breathtaking. I am very much anticipating the follow up to this book.