Review of Gemma Malley's The Resistance

The Resistance by Gemma Malley

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


I really enjoyed the first book in this series (The Declaration)and think that Gemma Malley's concept is incredibly thought provoking, but I found myself unable to really get into The Resistance. The series tells the story of a future where Longevity drugs have wiped out disease and death, resulting in a population that lives forever. To prevent the population from growing too large, you have to sign a declaration promising not to have children. Any children that do occur are illegal, referred to as surpluses, and are basically trained to be slaves.

In The Resistance, Peter and Anna have become legal and have began settling into their new lives away from the surplus hall. Both are determined to aid the resistance movement and to opt-out of signing the Declaration. Peter begins working at Pincent Pharma (his grandfather's company) where Longevity drugs are created in order to help the resistance.

Gemma Malley's concept is magnificent and really made me think. Why do we have children? Is it just a biological need to pass on our DNA or would we still want to have children in a world where we could never die? In a world where no one had children how long would it take for kids to become the "other" and demonized as such? This concept was truly one that I couldn't get out of my head. I did not, however, really like Malley's execution of the concept.

Here were my main problems with the book:

1) I really wish she had made Anna and Peter older. Even knowing the kind of world that they live in I found it hard to not be disturbed by a 16 year old (I'm assuming she was 16 since she received her declaration) caring for a one year old and pregnant with her first baby.
2) This book switched the main narrator from Anna to Peter (probably because Peter's role in this book was far more exciting than Anna's role of babysitter) and I found Peter's voice to be less fresh than Anna's brainwashed point of view in book 1.
3) Almost every character in the book was either 100% good or 100% bad. The characters almost seemed like caricatures instead of fully developed, realistic individuals. There was really no way to relate to the other side in this book.
4) This book was so action packed that it just didn't seem very realistic. The previous book had seemed much more subtle.

I finished reading this book, and finished reading it quickly, but I found myself constantly looking ahead to see how many pages I had left and then hoping to finish quickly. I just wasn't really in to this book, which is a shame because I loved the premise and really enjoyed the first book.



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