The third and final installment of Rebecca Donovan's "Breathing" series came out this week and I had it pre-ordered on Kindle, ready and waiting for the July 4th weekend. I really loved the first two books and I wanted to like Out of Breath more than I did. It was a good book that held my interest and it was great to find out what happened to all the characters because there was a bit of a cliffhanger at the end of book 2. The writing was probably even more confident and polished than the earlier installments of the trilogy. But I felt something was missing. It might have been because this book takes place two years after the end of the previous book and I felt a little cheated because I wanted to SEE what happened right after the events of book 2 and not have it recounted in flashback. It might also be because I wanted the characters to be younger ie similar ages to the first two books. It's great to see them in college getting on with their lives as best they can, but I was so attached to the characters in high school that the jump in time period was a little jarring. I understand why Donovan did this. She couldn't really tell the story she needed to tell about the characters' futures without jumping forward in time. But I would have liked a few chapters at the beginning that served as more of a bridge between the two books. She also introduces a heck of a lot of new characters in the final book and it's hard to get a handle on all of them while still focusing on the main story between Emma and Evan. I also felt that the pace was a little bit off in this book. There seemed to be a lot of lengthy build-up to a rather quick resolution in the final few chapters and some of the resolution was kind of predictable.
I don't mean to be overly negative because I love this trilogy and I love the characters. I think Donovan was extremely brave to tackle the issue of domestic abuse and what it does to a person's self-worth and ability to go on with their life and form meaningful relationships. And I continue to adore the complexity of the relationship between Evan and Emma. The supporting characters from the original books were also as strong as ever in this final installment. I guess I just felt that the scope of this story was perhaps too ambitious and there was too much going on. Perhaps it should have been a quadrology rather than a trilogy? Anyway, I do recommend this final installment and it will keep readers turning pages, and I'll surely read whatever Donovan writes next. But there's a very special spark in books 1 and 2 that wasn't quite recaptured here.
I don't mean to be overly negative because I love this trilogy and I love the characters. I think Donovan was extremely brave to tackle the issue of domestic abuse and what it does to a person's self-worth and ability to go on with their life and form meaningful relationships. And I continue to adore the complexity of the relationship between Evan and Emma. The supporting characters from the original books were also as strong as ever in this final installment. I guess I just felt that the scope of this story was perhaps too ambitious and there was too much going on. Perhaps it should have been a quadrology rather than a trilogy? Anyway, I do recommend this final installment and it will keep readers turning pages, and I'll surely read whatever Donovan writes next. But there's a very special spark in books 1 and 2 that wasn't quite recaptured here.
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