Review: Resist (Breathe, #2) by Sarah Crossan

Spoiler warning! This is the second book in the Breathe series and this book will contain spoilers from the first book. You can read my review of Breathe here instead. You've been warned! 

 Resist (Breathe, #2) by Sarah Crossan

Author: Sarah Crossan Website|Twitter
Published: 10 October 2013 (Bloomsbury)
Format: Kindle e-book (ARC)
Pages: 300
Buy the paperback: Amazon|BookDepository
Buy the e-book: Kindle|Kobo

Source: Received free copy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks Bloomsbury!

Plot Summary (from Goodreads):
Resistance to the Pod Leadership has come apart. The Grove has been destroyed but so has the Pod Minister. Quinn, Bea and Alina separately must embark on a perilous journey across the planet's dead landscape in search of the rumoured resistance base Sequoia. Meanwhile the Pod Minister has been succeeded by his capricious daughter. Her brother, Ronan, is supposed to advise her, but his doubts about the regime lead to him being sent out of the Pod in search of Quinn. In a world in which the human race is adapting to survive with little air, the stakes are high.

My Review:
I thoroughly enjoyed Breathe when I read it earlier this year, and I've been dying for the sequel to be released. I did a little dance when I got approved to read and review it because it was one of my highly anticipated reads. Resist follows Bea, Quinn and Alina as they try and make it to safety.

I have finished this book with very mixed thoughts. There were bits I liked and bits I didn't, and I'm trying to unscramble my brain so I can figure out exactly what I made of it.

Starting this book, I realised very quickly that the tone was going to take some getting used to. Resist was a lot bleaker than I was expecting. Obviously all the characters are in a pretty sticky situation but all throughout the book there is this struggle to find any kind of hope to hang on to. It was intense! The upside to this was that I was really fearing for the fates of certain characters. I was genuinely worried about what would happen to them and there were some moments that really pulled at the heartstrings.

The first book was told in multiple-POV from Bea, Quinn and Alina's perspective, and in this book we're introduced to Ronan, a new character whose POV we also get to see. Ronan's dad is part of the government but Ronan himself has become disillusioned with what they are doing and is starting to rebel. I loved that he could see the bigger picture and could choose which side was the right to one to be on. I ended up really liking Ronan. In fact, I was surprised that his chapters became my favourites throughout the book because I expected to like the established characters more.

Resist also deals with some pretty intense ideas. There's the darker side of war and some of the things Alina and the others come across as they venture out into the world are pretty shocking. I loved that Crossan really delved into that dark side and those moments made for some really gripping moments and a disturbing environment.

As the book moved on, I started to struggle with it a bit. I just wasn't feeling that connected with the characters. In Breathe, I struggled a bit with Quinn as a character and found him a bit annoying, but in this book he didn't really do anything to provoke a reaction either way for me. It was taking a while for the plot to really kick off. The beginning was good and I was enjoying it at first, but the pacing in the middle started to lag. The characters spent a lot of time travelling around and not a lot else. In the end it wasn't until I was about 80% through the book that the action started to pick up again and by then I was already feeling a bit disappointed and disillusioned. I missed that spark that Breathe had.

I was holding out hope for the end of the book because I wanted to know what was going to happen to these characters and this world. The climax was a little chaotic but the pay off was worth it in the end. There were plenty of shocks and heart-wrenching moments, plus the conclusion really did a great job at providing that sense of closure and feeling like the end of a series. I was happy with where it left off and how it gave the characters a final send off.

It's hard when a sequel doesn't quite hit the mark of its predecessor. For me, Breathe provided some great ideas and a fast-paced plot, and Resist felt a bit separate. Either way, I enjoyed getting to know the new characters and finding out the fate of the ones I'd come to know through both books. I still think the overall idea of the books is brilliant, and Breathe is a book I'd highly recommend.

Rating: 3*
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