Review: Reached by Ally Condie

Author: Ally Condie

Publisher: Penguin

Page Count: 512 pages, Hardcover

Date Published: November 13th 2012

Find it on Goodreads: Reached

Source: Purchased

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.

I have been sitting at my computer for a good ten minutes just trying to figure out how to start this review. Reached was dull and uneventful and much too long.

This dystopian trilogy started off great, in my opinion, but my liking for it declined with each book. I really enjoyed Matched. I thought the world Condie had created was great, much like the world from Lois Lowry's The Giver, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I loved the premise of it all, the poetry and art that was incorporated within the story, and I really liked the characters as well. Then came Crossed. It was just okay. I began to get bored with it quite a lot and it wasn't until the last quarter, maybe, that I actually really began to enjoy it. And then we have Reached. This book disappointed me, quite a bit. I'm going to be honest, I don't really remember a lot of what happened in this book, because it took me so long to get through. I was extremely bored, anticipating something extraordinary to pop out and make it all better, but alas, nothing.

With the conclusion of a dystopian trilogy like this one, I was expecting at least a bit of action. WE GOT NOTHING. Like... nothing.

The first two books were leading up to a rebellion! The RISING for Pete's sake! But what we got was some plague thing that ends up growing into a terrible mutation, the Society just sitting back and watching it all happen, without putting up a fight, and the Rising ending up having to go ask for help to try and contain the mutation! I understand that Condie was probably trying to go with something different and lead away from the violent rebellion that we were all expecting, but in my eyes, it just didn't work. I know nothing about the Society, nor the Rising. I don't know anything about how they work or who their leaders are. All I know is that the Rising has this 'Pilot' who was such a huge mystery in Crossed and all of a sudden in Reached he's just there. He just shows up and we still don't know who he is. But I also think that was kind of the point. A bit question in this book was "Who is the pilot?" Is it Ky? Xander? Indie? Cassia? Someone else? Or is it everyone? I have kind of an on and off liking of the Pilot. I liked what I think Condie was going for with it, but at the same time, I wish there had been something more.  

Reached is told from three POVs: Cassia's, Ky's and Xander's. I had a really hard time knowing who's head I was in during each chapter and had to look at the top of the page quite often to see which name was written there. I found there was no defining voice for our three mains and that really bothered me. There was a major lack of chemistry between our characters, as well. Ky and Cassia hardly acknowledged each other, let alone showed any romantic interest in each other. They're supposed to be in love, right? Or did I miss something? Because that is entirely possible as well. I found the characters in this book to be really bland and emotionless and that made me really sad. I loved the romance between Ky and Cassia in Matched and was so excited for them to be finally reunited at last... I just wish they had been a bit excited as well.

Ally Condie is a talented writer. Her way with words can be amazing and beautiful and it's nice to read, if that makes sense. She has great concepts that I still adore and the fact that she incorporates poetry and art into her story makes me enjoy it much more than I would have. But there were things that lacked that I cannot ignore. While written with a beautiful prose, the writing was also quite choppy at some points and that's a huge pet peeve of mine. The world-building was weak; Even in the third book, I still have no idea how this world came to be, what caused it all, who started the Society. The characters lacked in personalities and I ended up not connecting with them at all. The plot was predictable and I was craving some sort of crazy plot-twist because I predicted everything that was going to happen much before it did. While I was disappointed with this conclusion, I hope to see more of Condie's work in the future. She has strong ideas and her writing is good, however I'd love to see what she could do with a standalone novel.

Have you read this series? I'd love to know what you thought of it. Maybe you can explain some things to me that you maybe think I missed while reading Reached? I might one day reread Matched and the next two books and see if I understand this book a bit better. But for now, it was just okay.

Happy reading!
~Kristy