YA Lit/Dystopian, Sci Fi
I gave this 3 out of 5 Stars on Goodreads
This book felt like a placeholder
because it is one as the middle book of the Matched trilogy. I'm glad that Reached (Matched #3), comes out next week so I can quickly determine if the middle
book woes are quickly forgotten.
I did like that in this installment,
the chapters altered between Cassia’s point of view and Ky’s point of
view. This was very helpful because Ky
has a lot going on in his head that explain his actions. If not for that, we might think he was a jerk
or at a minimum, slightly off his rocker.
Xander is a character in absentia for the most part, but it’s clear that
he’ll be coming back full throttle in the final book, Reached. One new and quite interesting character who is introduced
is the wild and beautiful Indie.
The violence is ratcheted up a bit from
Matched, but it only makes sense that
it would be as this story takes place in war zones. The book gave us a lot of background
information about the formation of the Society and its original intentions, as
well as a deeper look into Ky’s life. Ky
and Cassia are getting to know each other a bit, and they are both finding
their own and the other’s imperfections.
Condie does a good job of building a
haze around most every character so that it’s difficult to tell who is
trustworthy. I am hoping that much of
the disjointedness of characters and events will become more cohesive in the
third book; hopefully these weren’t insignificant and while reading book 3, we’ll
have that awesome “Aha Moment” when we’ll think ourselves so clever for
remembering said insignificant detail from book 2.
Having said all that (and my, didn’t I
say it eloquently?), hoping that all the boring and disconnected stuff in this
book matters in its sequel doesn’t make earn a 5 star review. There is definitely potential for the story
to kick into high gear and rock ‘n’ roll again, so I will definitely read the
third book in the series.
My Clean-O-Meter rating for this book
is 3.5 out of 5 (where a 5 is squeaky clean).
The violence factor is increased with lots of death – especially of
children and teens, but there aren’t graphic descriptions of the actual deaths
or the bodies. No vulgar language (perhaps a “d**n” or two), no sex but a fair
amount of kissing which is not explained in more detail than lips being pressed
together. There is just a hint of
innuendo that maybe just maybe more than kissing happens, but it’s a
stretch. And there is one situation that
isn’t explained, so the reader could infer that two young people had a child together
out of wedlock.
View the book trailer - thanks Penguin!
And just a teaser for Reached, click here to see the trailer on EW.com
And if that's not enough, Ally Condie has released the first 45 pages of the book- I'm hooked! Reached - Ally Condie - Penguin Group (USA)
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