Anaiya is a Hero of Otpor, the Peacekeeper who brought a traitor to justice. But her time undercover has stripped her of her aptitude – and appetite – for being a Peacekeeper. Caught between the Elements of Fire and Air, in fear of being executed for Heterodoxy herself, can she learn to resist her conditioning and live differently?

Cue a plot of nested conspiracies as Peacekeeper and rebels both try to take advantage of Anaiya's unique circumstances and Anaiya tries to fool everyone into thinking she’s working for them when she’s mostly – shockingly – trying to figure out who she is now and what she wants.

Where Resistance forced Anaiya to confront home truths without convincing her she didn’t want to go home, Rebellion goes all out for disbanding the police, with Anaiya coming round to the Unorthodox position that reducing the power of the Peacekeepers isn’t a heretical notion. Power corrupts, and Otpor should be able to achieve balance without unaccountable law enforcement.

This theme may divide readers, but it was the characters who frustrated me. Anaiya once again veers between feeling sorry for herself and acting impulsively; her perspective left me mostly irritated and Kaide's almost limitless web of contacts often make him feel more of a plot device than a character. That said, I enjoyed their growing attraction, which was a massive improvement on the instacrush on Seth (whose appearances here do nothing to help me understand why he's such a figurehead).

While I appreciated the clarifying detail in the world-building and the introduction of the aloof elite, I'm left troubled by many of the implications (not least the built-in ableism) and how surprisingly straight the world is given it's designed for consequence-free hedonism (the single gay pairing is tragic, with one of them dead by the start of Rebellion). The result is a vision that has potential, but which I found dissatisfying.

I'd recommend this series for younger readers looking for (slightly) older characters having previously enjoyed YA dystopias. Sadly it fell flat for me, and I won't be continuing with the series.

Rebellion starts out right about where Resistance ends. Anaiya is coming to grips with the events in Resistance and desperately scrambling to survive. I found her a much more rounded out character in this, a puppy always helps. I liked her growing relationship with Kaide and how that changes the events and characters in the book. Rebellion does start out slow just like Resistance but unlike Resistance I never felt like it had crawled to a stop. I got thoroughly annoyed with Seth as he let his grief blind him to the clear machinations of Eamon (who is very unhinged) and Lilith who the reader knows is working with some shady characters but I suppose Seth doesn't know that. I did like how the author doesn't make excuses for what Seth and Anaiya did to each other and doesn't have them get back together at all. And I liked that this book has an ending with the important to this novel strings all tied up but still leaves enough left unsolved for a sequel. It isn't a cliff hanger but it also doesn't feel episodic and I liked that combination.

Even better than the first - beautifully paced, with heart-in-mouth action and intrigue.
Simply stunning - it's going to be a painfully long wait for the third book!