breathe

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Book Reviews and Synopses

Breathe

Sarah Crossan

Crossan, Sarah. Breathe. Greenwillow Books. New York. 2012.

Sarah Crossan’s first book Breathe is a world wide best seller. Breathe is a great environmentally minded book about the importance of oxygen giving trees and is most suitable for young adults. Breathe, is a extremely intriguing book and definitely has a interesting plot.

Breathe is about a post-apocalyptic future where humans nearly destroyed the planet’s atmosphere. The main character is Anuin is a seventeen year old girl whose family is broken apart from years of rough climate change. Global warming finally took its toll. The glaciers finally melted and the sea flooded with new fresh water and the land flooded with the boiling water of the ocean and glaciers combined. The earth is in chaos as the government tries to establish some kind of structure to the economy. Meanwhile, Anuin has her own problems.

Breathe begins when Anuin and her best friend Jason have only a weeks worth of oxygen in their tanks and have to find Anuin’s little sister who is lost ever since their small settlement was raided by The Mob. The Mob is a group of rebels whose main goal is to destroy the government’s plans. Anuin and Jason have been going from settlement to settlement, searching endlessly, when they run into a giant city encased in a bubble of breathable air.

Anuin and Jason pitch up camp in the outskirts of the city to decide whether or not to go to the city. During the night, Anuin’s little sister appeared at the campsite, though she was bound and had a note from The Mob attached to her. The note read: Don't go to the city it was made for the rich. Meet us at the closest settlement. -The Mob. Anuin and Jason are powerless against The Mob’s resources and skills so they have no choice but to go to the settlement. Anuin’s little sister says that she sees some familiar surroundings and heads in the direction of a old and broken down inn.

In the old inn they meet Jace, the representative of The Mob, who brings all three of them to The Mob’s hideout, where Anuin and Jason learn the terrifying truth about the governments plans and where all the trees went. After this point, Sarah Crossan makes amazing plot twists and finally succeeds in pulling the reader into the world of Breathe.

Overall Breathe is a very unique and new idea and is extremely intriguing after the halfway mark. Sarah Crossan really tried to make this idea work though could've split Breathe into two different books.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Contributed by N. Thijm

October 17th, 2013