Reached

Author: Ally Condie
Author's Website: www.allysoncondie.com
Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)
Agent: Jodi Reamer
Editor: Julie Strauss-Gabel
Released: November 13, 2012
Genre: YA Dystopian
Series: Matched #3
Source: Library

After leaving Society to desperately seek The Rising, and each other, Cassia and Ky have found what they were looking for, but at the cost of losing each other yet again. Cassia is assigned undercover in Central city, Ky outside the borders, an airship pilot with Indie. Xander is a medic, with a secret. All too soon, everything shifts again.

This is a good conclusion to the series. I was a bit puzzled by it, since the focus seems to have shifted from rebelling against the inability to choose to fighting a Plague, but I did enjoy the book. On its own, not as part of an ideological trilogy, the book provides a hint of intrigue and a bit of suspense.

I'm having a hard time writing about the book, because I don't want to give the impression that I don't like it. I do. But it's a low-key, slow-paced book. There's a sort of elegant understated quality to the tone of the storytelling, whether it's Cassia, Xander, or Ky narrating that chapter. For me, it gave a sense of the naivete that these three have, even as they've gone through so much. They still know so little about the Society and the Rising and Pilot. By the end of the book, they grow out of this naivete, and in fact the focus turns back to the gift of choice winning out over security.

I love how the love plays out in this series. By this point, Cassia has no doubts about who she chooses, and the way she handles Ky and Xander is beautiful. It's also great that Xander gets his own resolution in the love department, not just that Cassia and Ky live happily ever after. Again, the end of the book goes back to the issue of choice, and it plays out nicely for the emotions of the characters.

I just felt like the book was longer than it had to be, with the pacing a bit slow. It was a great read for a slow day at work when I had a lot of downtime! But there's very little sense of urgency through most of the book, even when finding a cure now or a few minutes later means the life or death of a few hundred people. Still, I enjoyed the slow ride of the book.

Crossed

Author: Ally Condie
Publisher: Dutton (Penguin)
Released: 2011
Genre: YA Dystopian Romance
Author's Website: http://www.allysoncondie.com/

Series: Matched
Source: Library - Will Buy!!
Challenge: Dystopian Novels 2012

Their Words:
Rules are different outside the Society. Chasing down an uncertain future, Cassia makes her way to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky - taken by the Society to his sure death - only to find that he has escaped into the majestic, but treacherous, canyons. On this wild frontier are glimmers of a different life and the enthralling promise of rebellion. But even as Cassia sacrifices everything to reunite with Ky, ingenious surprises from Xander may change the game once again.

My words:
What a fantastic second book in the trilogy! Crossed is enthralling and utterly captivating for so many reasons.

One of the big things in the book is the breathtaking and vast landscape that Ally makes the reader feel as if you're actually there - a sort of wordscaping that is woven seamlessly into the narrative of the actual story. The map at the front of the book doesn't hurt, but even without it, I think I would've been able to follow the travels of Ky and his friends and Cassia and hers. Actually, the map doesn't provide a detailed description of the Carvings, but as Cassia tries to follow Ky, I was very clear at every point when she was on the right track, because of the understated, skillful way Ally describes their surroundings.

Of course, the characters continue to be as real and complex as they are in Matched. And as the story grows and develops and becomes more complex, the characters' complexity grows as well. Lots of exploration of feelings, lots of surprises.

And those surprises! The way the book works, alternating chapters between Ky and Cassia, is very conducive to surprises, because lots of chapters ended with such cliffhangers! I found myself holding my breath more than a few times - and I love when a story can engage me so completely. A mark of a masterpiece!

Matched

Author: Ally Condie
Publisher: Penguin
Released: November 30, 2010
Genre: Dystopian YA

Cassia is looking forward to her Matching Banquet when she'll learn who the Society Matched her with. Her belief that the Society knows what it's doing is confirmed when she's Matched with her best friend. Xander. But when she gets home and pulls up the information on the microcard they've given her, another boy's face flashes on the screen before it goes blank - Ky, another boy she knows. An Official comes to her to give her the correct card, but Cassia is now in turmoil - she's falling in love with Ky, someone she could never be seen having a "fling" with, and besides that lots of things are happening to make her doubt the perfection of the Society. She begins thinking for herself, wanting a choice in her life, something unheard of in the improved, regulated Society.

Matched is a book that really makes you think. It touches on many issues worth thinking about - love, censorship, choices, freedom. Many parts of the book remind me of 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, with constant supervision and even dream-tracking, and the way only a select few works of art, literature, and poetry are allowed to survive. And I think Ally Condie does a really good job of exploring these topics for teens the way those books do for adults. I love that the book is open-ended, that there is no neat resolution, because that is a mark of a book that really is meant to make you think.

But even so, it was great to have compelling characters. Cassia, Ky, and Xander are all interesting in their own ways, and the other smaller characters add to the construction of what's accepted and what's considered breaking out in this dystopian society. I love that Cassia is not at all passive, that she's a thinker and can think for herself even before everything starts to change, before Ky starts to affect her. This book is very like Delirium in its concept, and that was the one thing that bothered me about Delirium - that Lena seemed a bit weak until Alex started bending the way she thought about things. Cassia is a strong girl in her own right, and the choices she makes are all her own.

I love the writing style, too. The story speeds along, slowing down at fitting moments, speeding up when confusion abounds. I felt completely involved in the new Society, and I actually physically felt fear when Cassia faced choices or was called out by Officials!

This is a really great book - thought-provoking and a great love story at the same time.