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A review by a_j_torres0
Breaking Order by Catherine Kopf
3.0
This version of the book is no longer on sale, but the story has been rewritten, recategorized to Middle Grade instead of Young Adult, and republished with a new cover.
This book is a Young Adult Dystopian/Fantasy novel book 1.
Book Cover: 5* - Wow! Can I say that this cover is a beautiful one. With the skyscraper over head, telling me that we are either in a modern setting or a futuristic one, and a young girl over looking what she has created on a wall surrounded by paint buckets and butterflies, telling me that we may be dealing with a story about the oppression of creativity and breaking free from such rules/laws. I loved the symbolism this cover gave me and I love how well it was done and reflects the story a bit.
Summary/Tagline: 4* - When I originally read the summary and tag to this book, I was very intrigued, but I also got, right off the bat, what kind of story this is telling me. A young girl living in a strict and conservative society with rules/laws against anything and everything involving art from painting to music to films, etc. and she gets shown that side and breaks free from such shackles of "order". It pulled me in enough to want to read this.
Characters: 3* - In this book we follow only 14 year old Calista Knight, daughter of The Regime's Head Executioner. She's pretty meak, and it seems follows the rules well enough to not want her father's wrath upon her. However, I wasn't drawn to the character unfortunately. Things happen in this book rather, quickly? Yeah I'll go with that, without much reaction from Calista or time to get to know how she feels about certain things from witnessing her father execute something to her mother leaving her family to meeting a dude claiming that magic and dreams are a good thing. It feels too rushed and most of the reactions and emotions are pretty quickly glossed over so that the story can just continue. There's just no balance with character development and the story's plot, and although there is a change from submissive and obedient Calista to accepting dreams and magic are good and The Regime are bad, we don't really SEE that development, she just accepts that fact later with not much push back. There are, of course, other characters in this book, and were given a similar treatment, but with different reasons. I won't say them here in case of spoilers, however, the characters weren't bad, they just weren't as properly developed for my liking. Also, the dialogues from these characters are pretty, I'm going to say weird and awkward, and I don't mean that they are quirky, I mean the conversations just don't always fit into specific scenes. That's all.
World Building: 3* - The lore in this world wasn't a bad one, but like many dystopians, I don't really know how the world got into this state in the first place. The city we reside in is called Fortress, mostly named because of the massive wall that surrounds the city and because most of the buildings are made of stone and concrete, at least those outside of the government/military areas anyway. Also, like some dystopians that follow a "lead by a military like regime", it's strict, job based, and conservative. You're not really given a choice in what you want to do, let alone what to wear. The Regime gives you said choice in what they deem appropriate and that will serve and benefit them. We are told Calista is asthmatic, and besides being told some reason here and there to suggest she does(we don't see a consequence of her having asthma), her father signs her up for a medication that will "treat" her asthma, but comes with some serious side effects like almost sterilization, stunted height, among a couple other things, because of that she's sure that she will not be placed in marriage for baby making and is instead sure that she will be placed in execution like her father, which is what's clear he wants anyway. We also get some info about dreamers and magic, which I'm mostly getting the idea that, this world just has them compared to it not existing in ours, so I'm assuming this is more of an alternate world kind of situation. I do like some of the information given to us about dreamers and magic, but I would have liked the how's and why's of The Regime too.
Story: 3* - Like I said earlier, the story follows Calista living in Fortress under the rule of The Regime. She's told what is order and what is chaos and she goes along with it, to a point. She meets a boy named Wes, a painter, who says he's looking for his sister that was taken from him long ago after his parents were executed for being dreamers. Soon they gather a small team to find out where Wes's sister is and things happen, but the group make it to a new hideout where they plan to raise a resistance to fight back against The Regime. Did this feel rushed? Good because it was. The story is mostly a beat for beat kind of story where we go from A to B to all the way to Z in the matter of, I think a few days? It may have been a couple of weeks in the book, but it didn't feel like it was a long time to set their plans in motion. Things happened that get pushed forward and glossed over even without much set up or even time to settle in what's happened. The reactions are quick and immediately pushed aside to allow the characters to just keep progressing through the story. Not to mention that the story was largely predictable, which isn't always a bad thing, so long as there's something there to surprise me, but there was only 2 things that did, which again, was quick and pushed aside, and the characters just accept the new information without any push back. This story was just to quick for my liking, it just needs to find that balance of character development and story pacing.
Over All: 3* - All in all, it wasn't a bad read, but it wasn't gripping either. This probably would've made for a good entry point for middle grade readers to get into young adult books for the first time, but the tones and pacing was too all over the place for me. I'm not sure if the story wanted to be more whimsical or more mature. Not to mention story was too rushed without much development from the characters. Although I enjoyed the idea of dreamers and magic in a dystopian setting, it just, like many dystopian books, didn't give me time and information on how this setting and world came to be. I very much am looking forward to the new Breaking Order book, it's now middle grade with an added POV character alongside Calista, so I'm curious to see how the story is now as it has been rewritten.
This book is a Young Adult Dystopian/Fantasy novel book 1.
Book Cover: 5* - Wow! Can I say that this cover is a beautiful one. With the skyscraper over head, telling me that we are either in a modern setting or a futuristic one, and a young girl over looking what she has created on a wall surrounded by paint buckets and butterflies, telling me that we may be dealing with a story about the oppression of creativity and breaking free from such rules/laws. I loved the symbolism this cover gave me and I love how well it was done and reflects the story a bit.
Summary/Tagline: 4* - When I originally read the summary and tag to this book, I was very intrigued, but I also got, right off the bat, what kind of story this is telling me. A young girl living in a strict and conservative society with rules/laws against anything and everything involving art from painting to music to films, etc. and she gets shown that side and breaks free from such shackles of "order". It pulled me in enough to want to read this.
Characters: 3* - In this book we follow only 14 year old Calista Knight, daughter of The Regime's Head Executioner. She's pretty meak, and it seems follows the rules well enough to not want her father's wrath upon her. However, I wasn't drawn to the character unfortunately. Things happen in this book rather, quickly? Yeah I'll go with that, without much reaction from Calista or time to get to know how she feels about certain things from witnessing her father execute something to her mother leaving her family to meeting a dude claiming that magic and dreams are a good thing. It feels too rushed and most of the reactions and emotions are pretty quickly glossed over so that the story can just continue. There's just no balance with character development and the story's plot, and although there is a change from submissive and obedient Calista to accepting dreams and magic are good and The Regime are bad, we don't really SEE that development, she just accepts that fact later with not much push back. There are, of course, other characters in this book, and were given a similar treatment, but with different reasons. I won't say them here in case of spoilers, however, the characters weren't bad, they just weren't as properly developed for my liking. Also, the dialogues from these characters are pretty, I'm going to say weird and awkward, and I don't mean that they are quirky, I mean the conversations just don't always fit into specific scenes. That's all.
World Building: 3* - The lore in this world wasn't a bad one, but like many dystopians, I don't really know how the world got into this state in the first place. The city we reside in is called Fortress, mostly named because of the massive wall that surrounds the city and because most of the buildings are made of stone and concrete, at least those outside of the government/military areas anyway. Also, like some dystopians that follow a "lead by a military like regime", it's strict, job based, and conservative. You're not really given a choice in what you want to do, let alone what to wear. The Regime gives you said choice in what they deem appropriate and that will serve and benefit them. We are told Calista is asthmatic, and besides being told some reason here and there to suggest she does(we don't see a consequence of her having asthma), her father signs her up for a medication that will "treat" her asthma, but comes with some serious side effects like almost sterilization, stunted height, among a couple other things, because of that she's sure that she will not be placed in marriage for baby making and is instead sure that she will be placed in execution like her father, which is what's clear he wants anyway. We also get some info about dreamers and magic, which I'm mostly getting the idea that, this world just has them compared to it not existing in ours, so I'm assuming this is more of an alternate world kind of situation. I do like some of the information given to us about dreamers and magic, but I would have liked the how's and why's of The Regime too.
Story: 3* - Like I said earlier, the story follows Calista living in Fortress under the rule of The Regime. She's told what is order and what is chaos and she goes along with it, to a point. She meets a boy named Wes, a painter, who says he's looking for his sister that was taken from him long ago after his parents were executed for being dreamers. Soon they gather a small team to find out where Wes's sister is and things happen, but the group make it to a new hideout where they plan to raise a resistance to fight back against The Regime. Did this feel rushed? Good because it was. The story is mostly a beat for beat kind of story where we go from A to B to all the way to Z in the matter of, I think a few days? It may have been a couple of weeks in the book, but it didn't feel like it was a long time to set their plans in motion. Things happened that get pushed forward and glossed over even without much set up or even time to settle in what's happened. The reactions are quick and immediately pushed aside to allow the characters to just keep progressing through the story. Not to mention that the story was largely predictable, which isn't always a bad thing, so long as there's something there to surprise me, but there was only 2 things that did, which again, was quick and pushed aside, and the characters just accept the new information without any push back. This story was just to quick for my liking, it just needs to find that balance of character development and story pacing.
Over All: 3* - All in all, it wasn't a bad read, but it wasn't gripping either. This probably would've made for a good entry point for middle grade readers to get into young adult books for the first time, but the tones and pacing was too all over the place for me. I'm not sure if the story wanted to be more whimsical or more mature. Not to mention story was too rushed without much development from the characters. Although I enjoyed the idea of dreamers and magic in a dystopian setting, it just, like many dystopian books, didn't give me time and information on how this setting and world came to be. I very much am looking forward to the new Breaking Order book, it's now middle grade with an added POV character alongside Calista, so I'm curious to see how the story is now as it has been rewritten.