REVIEW: Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris

Unbreakable by Elizabeth Norris
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I liked book 1, but book 2, Unbreakable, not so much. The book was split into multiple parts, and I didn’t like part one because it was a slow beginning. The book could have reduced part one to a few pages and included it in part two where the plot commenced.

I liked the plot. It wasn’t stingy with the action, and the conspiracy showed good depth. Same as book 1, the plot didn’t hesitate in killing off important characters and it killed more characters than book 1 did. Yikes. Note to readers picking up the series: don’t get attached to any of the characters.

+ the heroine

What I didn’t like about the book was the heroine and the underdeveloped science fiction elements. Janelle was both a positive and negative of the book. She was a positive because she was smart and courageous. She thought carefully before she made a decision, and when dangerous things needed to be done she got them done. Need to intentionally surrender so she could get inside a prison to rescue a friend? Done. Need to kill the dudes actively shooting at our heroes? Done. Need to bring down a criminal organization whose evil ties extended to the one of the highest echelons of the government and across parallel universes? Done, done, and done.

Even so, Janelle was as much of a strong heroine as I wanted. She was negative because her narration was too preoccupied with Ben, her love interest. Ben this, Ben that. Love of her life! I understood that she severely missed Ben, but I wished she would have showed some attempt to move on with her life. She thought about him more than she thought about her friend who died in book 1 and her other friend who got kidnapped in book 2.

+ the romance

Janelle made the book too dramatic for my liking. When she finally found Ben, he was accompanied by a second Janelle who was from a parallel universe. Oy. It was one of the many hurdles that arose and made their relationship run hot and cold, all of which could be blamed on Janelle. Janelle needed to quit letting her reactions get the better of her and tidy up her feelings. Her narration was so muddled with useless emotions.

The romance was like a jelly blob covering every part of the book, weighing the book down. I was not a fan of the romance since book 1, and I came to dislike it in book 2.

+ the science fiction side

The science fiction elements weren’t as strong and coherent as they were in book 1. There just happened to be a material that made inter-universal teleportation impossible, which somehow extended to the characters who had the inherent ability to teleport unlike others who needed the gadget. Parallel Earths were brought out with no organization, with little diversity, and with great convenience. The world building went heavy handed with the apocalypse theme as if there was no peaceful parallel Earth.

If there wasn’t a token peaceful parallel Earth I would have thought practically all the Earths in the multiverse were apocalyptic. However, that peaceful parallel Earth came with its own issue. It was peaceful because it hasn’t gone through the Industrial Revolution yet. I didn’t like the close association between apocalypse and science where all the apocalyptic Earths resulted from abuse of science. In a certain angle, the book seemed to have a strong anti-science message however unintentional it might have been.

In Conclusion

I rate Unbreakable 2-stars for it was okay. If you like this science fiction series, check out the Blood of Eden series by Julie Kagawa.

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