Tagged: ally condie
“Reached” by Ally Condie
Cassia’s journey began with an error, a momentary glitch in the otherwise perfect façade of the Society. After crossing canyons to break free, she waits, silk and paper smuggled against her skin, ready for the final chapter.
The wait is over.
One young woman has raged against those who threaten to keep away what matters most—family, love, choice. Her quiet revolution is about to explode into full-scale rebellion.
With exquisite prose, the emotionally gripping conclusion to the international–bestselling Matched trilogy returns Cassia, Ky, and Xander to the Society to save the one thing they have been denied for so long, the power to choose.
Much earlier this year I wrote reviews for the first two books in this series, Matched and Crossed where I admitted to liking the books more than I originally thought I would. I had high hopes for the concluding installment, figuring that Ally Condie would wrap the story up with some great action, interesting twists, and solid character development.
Imagine my surprise when Reached turned out to be none of those things.
Yes, the story of Cassia, Ky, and Xander gets wrapped up in a pretty little package at the end where most of them get what they are searching for after helping the Rising complete its power grab, or if not exactly what they want, an acceptable alternative, but along the way to that end result the book is incredibly flat and lacking in excitement or drive in my opinion.
As characters, especially leading characters, Cassia and Ky fell completely by the wayside. Cassia never changed from the beginning of the book to the end, she just kept doing the same thing over and over, never really learning anything from what was going on around her. Ky was the same way. As a pilot for the Rising he did his duty as he was given assignments but we never got to see him grow in an appreciable manner. I felt that both of them were incredibly boring which made reading their respective viewpoint chapters a bit of a challenge.
Xander on the other hand, is the one shining piece of Reached as he works to help not only the Rising in his role as medical spy, but also to help the general public of the Society as well. I wound up liking Xander as a character far more than anyone else in the trilogy by the time I was finished reading Reached. He showed growth, compassion, a hint of jealousy, acceptance of his fate, etc. The other two just got what they wanted and didn’t even seem to realize it.
I had high hopes for this book, I wanted a stellar ending to the story, but after easily being able to pick sides in the first two books I found I had a hard time seeing either the Rising or the Society as the villains or heroes of the people. Both seemed to have decent intentions, but really messed up putting them into action. As a result, I wasn’t really sure if I should be happy or not when I was finished.
For fans of the first two books, you should probably read Reached just to make sure you get the complete story, and some of you may even enjoy it quite a bit more than I did, but in the end it isn’t nearly as good a book as Matched or Crossed were; it almost seems as if it were forced in some ways.
Grade: D
Length: 384 pages
Matched by Ally Condie
(Cover picture courtesy of Writing from the Tub.)
Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander’s face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham’s face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. The Society tells her it’s a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she’s destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can’t stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society’s infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
(Summary courtesy of Amazon.)
Matched by Ally Condie has garnered quite a bit of attention and hype, but once again we must ask ourselves: Does it deserve it?
Well, in a word, no.
Yet because it doesn’t live up to all of the hype doesn’t mean it is a bad novel. In fact, it’s quite a good novel. But is it absolutely amazing and the best thing since man learned how to make fire? Of course not. If I had to classify Matched, I’d put it under the ‘average’ category. It’s an average YA novel, nothing more.
At the risk of sounding like every other book reviewer that’s read this book (and even a few that haven’t), I would describe it as ‘Orwellian’, simply because there is no other word for it. The level of control the Officials have over every aspect of people’s lives is frightening and teens will be able to see the allusions to our own world. For example, every meal is tailored to the individual so they receive the proper amount of nutrition for their age, occupation, metabolism and body type. This could be seen as an allusion to how obsessed we are today with the fitness culture—all Ally Condie did was take things up a notch. People who are so politically inclined could point out that if the government continues to ‘intrude upon our lives’, the society in Matched is a natural progression.
Like in pretty much all YA novels, there is a love triangle. This one, however, is a bit different because in the beginning, Cassia is quite willing to accept Xander as her Match. She didn’t start out as a rebel, but the poem her grandfather gave her and her growing love for Ky change her. One of the best parts of Matched is the character development—the love triangle isn’t forced at all.
So there are quite a few good things about Matched, but I wouldn’t say there was really anything exceptional. It was good, but not memorable because even though I have an excellent memory for books and it’s only been six days since I’ve read this book, I wasn’t able to remember the name of the main character without looking it up. I can recall every detail of Scroll of Saqqara, name every character in Feed and can rant about everything I hated about Inheritance for hours, but I wasn’t able to remember Cassia. Which, of course, brings me back to my original point: Matched is good, but it’s not great or memorable.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.