Review: Word and Breath by Susannah Noel

Book: Word and Breath (Wordless Chronicles #1)
Author: Susannah Noel
Publisher: Indie
Date Published: August 31st, 2012
ASIN: B008UM8XRM
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***Review Copy provided by Author***
4 out of 5 Stars

Blurb: Riana has learned how to stay out of trouble. She spends her days studying written texts in the government’s Office of Readers, and she spends her nights taking care of her sick sister. She always—always—follows the rules. Despite her low profile, she has mysteriously become a target. Someone has kidnapped her sister. Someone else is trying to kill her. And someone has sent a Soul-Breather to beguile her out of her secrets.
  Her help comes from the mythic leader of an underground rebel movement. A man who used to be her friend. A man who has silently loved her for years. He disappeared from her life without a word, and now he expects her to trust him again.
  Then there’s the Soul-Breather, a man who can taste her spirit with only a touch. He makes her feel things she’s never experienced before, but she doesn’t know if the feelings are real. Hired to deceive and betray her, he offers to help her instead.
  Without both men, she can’t rescue her sister. And she can’t discover the world-changing knowledge—buried in her memory—that has made her a target in the first place.

    For someone like me, words can mean so very much. Books have helped me through some of the most difficult times in my life. Books can offer knowledge, comfort, intrigue, entertainment, and the list could go on & on. Imagine a world now where there are very few people left who can even read and books no longer hold that power. Scary isn't it.
  In Word and Breath we are introduced to Riana, one of the few readers left, and in her dystopian world reading has been discouraged by the government for a long time. Readers are only kept to keep track of archives and to check for hidden codes that the rebellion has planted in old written word. At the request of a co-worker Riana lets an anomaly in a note slide without reporting it to her supervisor and is unwittingly pulled into the underground resistance.
  Riana has to try to find her kidnapped sister and figure out who is out to get her. All the while she is falling in love, finding real friends, figuring out who she is, and what stand she will take in her life. Although this book does feature a love-triangle, it's not a particularly angst-ridden one.
  If you're looking for a good book to read that features a strong and intelligent young heroine and a good dystopian theme I think you'll love this book. The amount of government repression and propaganda that is fed to the public is reminiscent of books like The Hunger Games (minus the whole fighting to the death arena-style). I really enjoyed reading it and now I can't wait for the next book to find out where it will take me.