Crossed by Allie Condie Series: Matched #2
Published by Dutton Juvenile on November 2011
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult
Pages: 367
Format: ebook
Source: My copy
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The long-awaited second book in the dystopian Matched trilogy.
In search of a future that may not exist and faced with the decision of who to share it with, Cassia journeys to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky - taken by the Society to his certain death - only to find that he has escaped, leaving a series of clues in his wake. Cassia's quest leads her to question much of what she holds dear, even as she finds glimmers of a different life across the border. But as Cassia nears resolve and certainty about her future with Ky, an invitation for rebellion, an unexpected betrayal, and a surprise visit from Xander - who may hold the key to the uprising and, still, to Cassia's heart - change the game once again. Nothing is as expected on the edge of Society, where crosses and double crosses make the path more twisted than ever.
“In the end you can’t always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.”
Before I start on Crossed, a little bit of background on my thoughts on Matched, the first book in this trilogy. I read a lot of mixed reviews for Matched, and things that other reviewers disliked about it were things that I actually relished and enjoyed about the story. Condie’s writing of this dystopian world is slow paced and has a mysterious undercurrent of wrongness about the society that just builds your anticipation as to how its all going to play out. I also quite liked Cassia and could understand her reasons and motivations through the storyline overall I thought it was a very solid book and was really interested to see what happened in the sequel.
Crossed starts out in a very different place. Ky has been sent to the outer provinces and Cassia is determined to find him. I was really looking forward to their journey to one another yet the way they were brought together was just unrealistic and implausible to say the least. Cassia manages to by complete fluke hop on an airship that magically takes her to the area that Ky was sent to. And then manages to escape without any planning or difficulties even though Ky only just managed to himself and no one has survived previously??? I just couldn’t buy it.
The book is written from both Ky and Cassia’s perspective as they journey to find one another, which sounds romantic and like it would build your anticipation. Unfortunately I found it jarring and really felt that it took from the overall story instead of adding to it. Amongst the unrealistic plot is a lot of poetry and prose which I thought was quite heavy handed and instead of me feeling the love between these two, I just got irritated by it and found myself skimming over those parts. Seriously I know teenagers have a lot of angst but considering both Cassia and Ky are written as quite intelligent individuals man do they have real emo tendencies!
There are also a couple of new characters introduced into the story who journey with Ky and Cassia respectively and I’m not really sure what their purpose was other to ensure that neither of them when journeying in the middle of the desert alone. Indie in particular had a lot of promise and I’m hoping that she is explored a bit further in the final novel.
Where the first book gave you good insight into the society, Crossed delves more into those opposing the society including the Resistance which is what Cassia and Indie want to join. Finding out about the resistance and the farmers plus some of the back story into the society was what I enjoyed most about this story and I’m very interested to find out how they all play together in the final installment of the trilogy – Reached.
Overall I found this an incredibly disappointing sequel and while I will read the series to conclusion, my expectations aren’t particularly high.
– Overdone and disappointing sequel.
Matched
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