secre's review
2.0
It is 2084 and nuclear radiation has decimated the majority of the country and left survivors trying to survive in a world where the niceties that keep society together have been overtaken by gangs, starvation and feral dogs that will tear you apart. If you don't take any risks and get back in the house by curfew, then you have a chance of survival. But when Melissa's Nan takes the risk of being out after curfew to get her hands on some shoes, Melissa's small world falls apart at the seams and being taken by a gang leads to one act of desperation after another.
Breakdown is the second book of Sarah Mussi's that I have been severely disappointed by. Out of three in total, that isn't a good total. Breakdown also managed to infuriate and annoy me in turns with poor character development, a plot that jumps about too much and a Godlike Nan who seems to have become omnipotent with her death. The first eye roll moment comes from the fact that of course Melissa is astoundingly beautiful and of course her beauty is both a blessing and a curse. Stunningly beautiful lead females in teenage dystopian novels are overdone and then some.
Secondly, the character of Melissa is simply...tiresome. Sometimes she seems to have some brain cells between those two beautiful ears and yet other times she is utterly vapid and reliant on the man of the story to save her. She isn't a consistent character at all. She umms, ahs, dithers and yet will later quite happily throws boiling water over somebody in the blink of an eye. Her Nan is even more of a nightmare; all of the wisdom that Melissa has ever seemed to have heard comes from her Nan's voice in her head and it's out of place from the frail character we actually meet at the beginning of the novel. That actual Nan went out in the knowledge that it was dangerous and foolish to get robbed blind for shoes and then break her ankle on route home; this same Nan's advice goes from typical 'don't trust boys' to advice on being a ruthless, heartless, lying bitch. It's rather odd. The reliance on Greek mythology and the symbolism of Melissa meaning bee also becomes wearying after the eight hundredth repetition.
The love angle between Melissa and Tarquin is equally irritating and I do wish authors would give teenagers a little more credit than falling in love with the first decent bloke they see. It's an irritating plot device that takes away more than it gives. The angle between Melissa and the child Lenny worked well, and if that had been played as a mothering angle with less empathis on the sappy romance between two characters fleeing for their lives then it would have worked better and been more believable. After all, Tarquin has already given up huge amounts for the sake of his younger brother and you wouldn't need the sappy angle to carry the relationships between the characters if it was played well.
Another main issue with this book is that the world building is poor at best and potentially abysmal at worst. This might be because the author was simply trying to cover too much ground and therefore couldn't link it all together, but the world in which the story is set just doesn't quite gel. Part of building a dystopian novel is in the world-building of where everything went wrong and how it sticks together now; Sarah Mussi fails at this. I simply didn't understand how certain decisions were made and what was behind them; how the army are growing bountiful harvests and yet none of this is getting back to any of the population. It makes no sense; even from an evil for the sake of evil perspective any person in charge is going to realise that a population that is starving to death isn't the most productive at rebuilding the country. There was no definition of how the gangs worked under the army, what in fact the army did except for finding people who have escaped the city and taking them to manual labour camps that seemed like better places to live than the city and what the General is actually a General of.
Which leads me neatly to my next point; the enemies are shockingly poor and this is mostly due to the poor world building. There are two big baddies as such; Careem who comes across as a more realistic villain, head of a gang in a dog eat dog world and the General who seems to have no purpose except for having a weakness for finding beautiful young girls and breaking their body and spirit. Even Careem makes shockingly poor decisions for no reason other than it moves the story along though; he is meant to be wily as well as ruthless, cunning as well as brutal and yet very little he actually does suggests this. His treatment of Lenny and Tarquin might make sense if either had embarrassed him, yet neither did and his willingness to break a useful asset for the sake of pointless brutality destroys any remnant of brains he is meant to have. The General is even worse; there is no character development at all and his only motive is breaking young girls. That's it. He is acting for no reason other than his spurious desires and that alone is enough for him to go traipsing across this desolate world in pursuit of one beautiful girl amongst many.
But possibly the real fall down for the book, and it might well be the reason for all the above faults, is that it tries to do too much and falls down hard. It's almost trying to be a mix of two genres of dystopian fiction; post-apocalyptic survival and governmental totalitarian, but in trying to do both it fails to do either. It doesn't link the governmental totalitarianism into the post-apocalyptic survival aspect and it's almost as if there are too entirely different worlds existing without any ties or links, except they are existing far too closely for this to be possible. On top of that you end up with the action chase across the country for little reason other than the General has taken a shine to Melissa's beauty.
===Do I Recommend?===
Effectively, this is let down by much the same things that let down Riot; poor world-building, insipid and inconsistent characters, random repetition and lack of depth. It isn't the worst I've ever read, but it certainly isn't the best either. If you're looking for stunning dystopian fiction then Hunger Games and Divergent come immediately to mind as far superior modern alternatives and even Delirium which isn’t one of my favourites either but is better written than this. 1984 and Animal Farm are of course classics that shouldn't be forgotten. Siege by the same author is a more compelling read.
Breakdown is the second book of Sarah Mussi's that I have been severely disappointed by. Out of three in total, that isn't a good total. Breakdown also managed to infuriate and annoy me in turns with poor character development, a plot that jumps about too much and a Godlike Nan who seems to have become omnipotent with her death. The first eye roll moment comes from the fact that of course Melissa is astoundingly beautiful and of course her beauty is both a blessing and a curse. Stunningly beautiful lead females in teenage dystopian novels are overdone and then some.
Secondly, the character of Melissa is simply...tiresome. Sometimes she seems to have some brain cells between those two beautiful ears and yet other times she is utterly vapid and reliant on the man of the story to save her. She isn't a consistent character at all. She umms, ahs, dithers and yet will later quite happily throws boiling water over somebody in the blink of an eye. Her Nan is even more of a nightmare; all of the wisdom that Melissa has ever seemed to have heard comes from her Nan's voice in her head and it's out of place from the frail character we actually meet at the beginning of the novel. That actual Nan went out in the knowledge that it was dangerous and foolish to get robbed blind for shoes and then break her ankle on route home; this same Nan's advice goes from typical 'don't trust boys' to advice on being a ruthless, heartless, lying bitch. It's rather odd. The reliance on Greek mythology and the symbolism of Melissa meaning bee also becomes wearying after the eight hundredth repetition.
The love angle between Melissa and Tarquin is equally irritating and I do wish authors would give teenagers a little more credit than falling in love with the first decent bloke they see. It's an irritating plot device that takes away more than it gives. The angle between Melissa and the child Lenny worked well, and if that had been played as a mothering angle with less empathis on the sappy romance between two characters fleeing for their lives then it would have worked better and been more believable. After all, Tarquin has already given up huge amounts for the sake of his younger brother and you wouldn't need the sappy angle to carry the relationships between the characters if it was played well.
Another main issue with this book is that the world building is poor at best and potentially abysmal at worst. This might be because the author was simply trying to cover too much ground and therefore couldn't link it all together, but the world in which the story is set just doesn't quite gel. Part of building a dystopian novel is in the world-building of where everything went wrong and how it sticks together now; Sarah Mussi fails at this. I simply didn't understand how certain decisions were made and what was behind them; how the army are growing bountiful harvests and yet none of this is getting back to any of the population. It makes no sense; even from an evil for the sake of evil perspective any person in charge is going to realise that a population that is starving to death isn't the most productive at rebuilding the country. There was no definition of how the gangs worked under the army, what in fact the army did except for finding people who have escaped the city and taking them to manual labour camps that seemed like better places to live than the city and what the General is actually a General of.
Which leads me neatly to my next point; the enemies are shockingly poor and this is mostly due to the poor world building. There are two big baddies as such; Careem who comes across as a more realistic villain, head of a gang in a dog eat dog world and the General who seems to have no purpose except for having a weakness for finding beautiful young girls and breaking their body and spirit. Even Careem makes shockingly poor decisions for no reason other than it moves the story along though; he is meant to be wily as well as ruthless, cunning as well as brutal and yet very little he actually does suggests this. His treatment of Lenny and Tarquin might make sense if either had embarrassed him, yet neither did and his willingness to break a useful asset for the sake of pointless brutality destroys any remnant of brains he is meant to have. The General is even worse; there is no character development at all and his only motive is breaking young girls. That's it. He is acting for no reason other than his spurious desires and that alone is enough for him to go traipsing across this desolate world in pursuit of one beautiful girl amongst many.
But possibly the real fall down for the book, and it might well be the reason for all the above faults, is that it tries to do too much and falls down hard. It's almost trying to be a mix of two genres of dystopian fiction; post-apocalyptic survival and governmental totalitarian, but in trying to do both it fails to do either. It doesn't link the governmental totalitarianism into the post-apocalyptic survival aspect and it's almost as if there are too entirely different worlds existing without any ties or links, except they are existing far too closely for this to be possible. On top of that you end up with the action chase across the country for little reason other than the General has taken a shine to Melissa's beauty.
===Do I Recommend?===
Effectively, this is let down by much the same things that let down Riot; poor world-building, insipid and inconsistent characters, random repetition and lack of depth. It isn't the worst I've ever read, but it certainly isn't the best either. If you're looking for stunning dystopian fiction then Hunger Games and Divergent come immediately to mind as far superior modern alternatives and even Delirium which isn’t one of my favourites either but is better written than this. 1984 and Animal Farm are of course classics that shouldn't be forgotten. Siege by the same author is a more compelling read.
anyaatawfullotofreading's review
4.0
Set in a world where all the bees have disappeared and the food stock is running low, Melissa and her Nan are just about surviving in London. But then cornered by a pack of hungry dogs, her Nan sacrifices herself to keep Melissa safe but she still ends up in the hands of the Game City Gang, with a powerful and violent leader that realises Melissa is a valuable commodity to trade to the General. The world building was amazing, from the rundown London to the dwindling population and the every man for himself attitude. It was harsh and tough and you could not trust anyone, least of all a gang member who said he will trade you to a sadistic nutjob as a plaything. The whole thing made me a little sick; not only was the world dying, the remaining people were just making surviving worse.
Melissa uses her Nan's advice to set about escaping. Hearing her voice to stay tough and don't let anyone in, Melissa sets about using her rescuer, Tarquin, and his little brother Lenny to help her run away, to a made-up safe place in Scotland. Lenny, only being 6, eats this up and wants to hear everything about it. Even before we really knew them, I could understand why they needed to believe in a place like the cottage; their life sucked. And as Melissa got to know them, she began to feel guilty to lying to them and they became her family.
The overall story was much more fast-paced and action driven than I expected it to be; very much a survival thriller where they have to outrun violent gangs, vicious dogs and the army. Of course they nearly don't make it, with plenty of obstacles that don't want them leaving, Careem being the main one. As they attempt to leave London, they are taken by the army and used to work on a farm. There, we learn much more about the corruption that is limiting the food going to the city or any other place that actually need it. Figures that even in a world where just growing vegetables is a minor miracle, someone is still trying to make money and power off them.
Written in a colloquial bad-on-purpose slang, Melissa and the boys' stories drag you in and pull at your heartstrings. Even knowing she had to ditch them, Melissa came to care for them and vise versa. Their incredibly tough journey was an amazing story to read, a classic UK dystopia with stubborn and sweet characters that you just have to cheer for.
Melissa uses her Nan's advice to set about escaping. Hearing her voice to stay tough and don't let anyone in, Melissa sets about using her rescuer, Tarquin, and his little brother Lenny to help her run away, to a made-up safe place in Scotland. Lenny, only being 6, eats this up and wants to hear everything about it. Even before we really knew them, I could understand why they needed to believe in a place like the cottage; their life sucked. And as Melissa got to know them, she began to feel guilty to lying to them and they became her family.
The overall story was much more fast-paced and action driven than I expected it to be; very much a survival thriller where they have to outrun violent gangs, vicious dogs and the army. Of course they nearly don't make it, with plenty of obstacles that don't want them leaving, Careem being the main one. As they attempt to leave London, they are taken by the army and used to work on a farm. There, we learn much more about the corruption that is limiting the food going to the city or any other place that actually need it. Figures that even in a world where just growing vegetables is a minor miracle, someone is still trying to make money and power off them.
Written in a colloquial bad-on-purpose slang, Melissa and the boys' stories drag you in and pull at your heartstrings. Even knowing she had to ditch them, Melissa came to care for them and vise versa. Their incredibly tough journey was an amazing story to read, a classic UK dystopia with stubborn and sweet characters that you just have to cheer for.
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