Sunday, December 30, 2012

Review: Reached by Ally Condi

Reached (Matched, #3)Did everyone know Reached by Ally Condi, the final book in the Matched series is 500 + pages!? Sweet merciful mother, I am happy I finished it, but things were dire for a while.

After leaving Society and desperately searching for 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 has been assigned to work for the Rising from within Society, while Ky has been stationed outside its borders. But nothing is as predicted, and all too soon the veil lifts and things shift once again. In this gripping conclusion to the #1 New York Times-bestselling Matched trilogy, Cassia will reconcile the difficulties of challenging a life too confining, seeking a freedom she never dreamed possible, and honoring a love she cannot live without (GoodReads).

I had three responses to this book. To the first third: "this is exhausting" as Tay Sway so fabulously sings in "We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together." Lets get on with it!. With the middle third, I became intrigued with the medical conspiracy. This meant I stopped hating all three narrators/main characters and decided Xander was tolerable. Cassia and Ky were still making me crazy. By the final third of the book I decided I liked the poems/picture aspect of Condi's dsytopian world again, and at least felt neutral about Cassia and Ky. I even liked Xander--liking someone was really a best-case scenario response.
  • Level of Originality: 6. I still stand by the claim that this is a cool Dystopian premise, even though I was fairly confused sometimes by the politics (to be fair I was reading fast). For those of you who have read this: the idea of the multiplicity of pilots was my favorite idea in this book. Did you like it?
  • Level of Absurdity: 7. there are some pretty serious coincidence reveals about how characters intersect by the end. There are millions of people in Condi's world- how do the same 30 people intersect so much?
  • Level of Paranormal Romance: 4. The romance is already established here, and while there are some nice moments of longing between Ky and Cassia, it takes a back seat to the twists and conspiracies of the Rising's sort-of revolution and the plague. I think Ky and L together best-- if I were in charge they would get together as fringe-of-dystopian society-tormented-souls and Xander would grow a spine and give Cassia an ultimatum and either get the girl or move on.
  • Level of Harry Potter-ness: The three-person narration was at least different. But I found listening to TWO boys pine after Cassia (who I couldn't remember much about by book three and Condi didn't give many refreshers about) tiring. Once in a while the prose is poignant, and I like the use of Emily Dickinson poems (I am a sucker for New England poets, what can I say?). Overall for writing, however, this book does not match the first two books in lyrical quality.
Gentle Reader, I did it! I finished the series! to sum it up, nothing shocking happened since Matched and Cassia ends up with exactly who I thought she would (want to take a guess?). I say read this is you are a fast reader and can cruise through 500 + pages, but I wouldn't give more than a couple days to it.

For background check out Crazy Camper's review of Matched and my interpretive response to Crossed.

4 comments:

  1. It's good that you sort of enjoyed this! I was surprised because I really liked it and didn't mind all the POV switching etc.

    But you are so right, how did they all end seeing each other all the time?

    And yes, the Tomorrow series is narrated by the same person for each book, her name is Suzi Doherty and she's an Aussie. She is SO good and doing different voices for the guys and girls and they never sound silly.

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  2. Y'all are my heroes, and I will not be giving this series another chance. I actually like when the POV alternates, but there is no way I could stand the pining thing. I'm glad you didn't *hate* it though.

    And Happy New Years to you lovely ladies! May it be filled with happiness, prosperity, and good books!

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  3. After the first one, I wanted so much to love this series... and I just didn't like Crossed. :(

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