Unbreathable

by Hafsah Laziaf

[Angie]

Space is like the next frontier of YA or something, which is where Unbreathable takes place. Jutaire is a Mars-like planet where humans now reside along side, but separate from, the native Jute. It is said that Earth was destroyed, so when Lissa and her father catch a glimpse of the planet, they need to be silenced. Her father is put to death, but Lissa is special. Humans and Jute alike need her for something. Something involving Earth. Both sides want to use her, so Lissa needs to decide who's worth saving in this war.

Unbreathable moves incredibly fast. This is in part due to the quick moving plot, but also to short chapters. I finished the book pretty quickly because of this. However, the situation for Lissa is constantly changing and I couldn't always keep up. At times, things moved way too fast and I'd have to go back and reread a page or two because I missed something. Characters go from perfectly healthy to being at death's end of a poising, from totally evil to somewhat good, from one location to another without much transition. Yes, Unbreathable always held my attention as there's never a dull moment, but there's no breathing room. Pardon the pun.

I loved the setting of Unbreathable. Space is awesome, but I couldn't help but wonder why humans are there in the first place. Obviously Earth wasn't really destroyed since Lissa sees it and the Jute are trying to get to it. But why did humans leave it in the first place to come to a planet where they can't even breath the air and the rain is deadly? Also it seems like the Jute don't have any regard for human life, so why share a planet with them? I also had questions about the Jute motives for wanting to move to Earth. They can't really breath oxygen, so why go to a planet with it? There is a solution to this, but they didn't have it when this plan was developed. I was just really confused.

The romance in Unbreathable really did not work for me. Lissa, of course, has to fall in love with the only other person who is like her: Julian. He's a nice guy, but bland. Then somehow she falls for his brother, Rowan, who is not a nice guy at all, and I don't mean in the bad boy way. This is a love triangle that I could not get behind. Lissa claims she's faking affection for Rowan in order to get information about his evil plan, but in the same breath she has actual feelings for him. But then she's feeling guilty because she has Julian, but when she's with Julian she can't stop thinking about kissing Rowan. If Lissa had either just been using him, or just had feelings for him, I wouldn't have minded. That flip-flopping was annoying. However, at one point I wanted her to choose Rowan, because Julian gives her the creepiest gift ever. I can honestly say I had never read about that gesture of love before, and I never want to again. If a guy gave me that, I'd get a restraining order, not kiss him!

I'm sad to say that I didn't enjoy Unbreathable as much as I had hoped. It sounded fun and exciting, but mostly it was confusing. I really liked it in the beginning, but things slowly went downhill as my questions built up and the strange romances developed. While it is nice to get a standalone for once, I do think the story could have benefited from being spread over two or three books. Several things could have been developed more this way, making for a more enjoyable read. As it is though, I was left with the biggest question of all: how do you take blood from someone for 17 years without them knowing?

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.