Review | 'Crossed'

Crossed
Ally Condie
365 pg., U.S. hardcover
Dutton
5 stars | A+



From Goodreads:

Rules Are Different Outside The Society

Chasing down an uncertain future, Cassia makes her way to the Outer Provinces in pursuit of Ky--taken by the Society to his sure death--only to find that he has escaped into the majestic, but treacherous, canyons. On this wild frontier are glimmers of a different life and the enthralling promise of a rebellion. But even as Cassia sacrifices every thing to reunite with Ky, ingenious surprises from Xander may change the game once again.
Narrated from both Cassia's and Ky's point of view, this hotly anticipated sequel to Matched will take them both to the edge of Society, where nothing is as expected and crosses and double crosses make their path more twisted than ever.

Crossed is the sequel to Matched, and if you have not read the latter, I suggest you do so before reading this review. The entirety of this review will be spoiler-free for Crossed.

Ally Condie has noticeably improved as a writer. While reading Matched, I remember having felt like her writing was rather juvenile and youthful, and while Crossed is still a very easy book to read and provides no challenge whatsoever, it's definitely an improvement upon what her writing was during Matched. If there were any flaws in my rating of this book, they would be towards the writing, just because it is so simple and easy to follow, and I know that some readers will not be able to find the complexity in the plot because of the writing. I happened to appreciate her style about fifty pages into the book, and I read the whole novel at my sister's softball game. It was...pretty amazing.

The plot of this book is centered around Ky, who's now living in the Outer Provinces, and Cassia, who finds herself there, and their attempts to decode a poem about a 'Pilot,' decipher information about the Rising, and make life-altering decisions regarding all those details and more. As far as an arc goes, I feel like maybe the story arc wasn't a full arc, but that it sort of dropped a bit, just because the ending wasn't really leading to the end for me. It wasn't until 200-some-odd pages in that I began to realize what they were planning to do, who was planning to do it, and why they planned on doing it. Don't get me wrong, though, the plot wasn't difficult to keep up with, but I suppose I just missed certain important aspects. I felt like the usage of the poem was interesting, as well as all of the references to the pills. It was interesting to find out who the 'Pilot' is/was, and I look forward to seeing more of that in Reached.

This book was the book for characterization--as far as the Matched world goes. Cassia really grows up and comes into her own in this installment, making so many bold choices, and breaking the mold of a stereotypical YA heroine in love. I wasn't expecting a lot going into this book, so I was blown away when we saw so many sides of Cassia; the needy girl, the courageous girl, the reluctant girl, the friendly girl. I never knew there were so many sides to Cassia Reyes. Ky also had a lot of characterization in this book, and I don't know whether or not it would've existed if we had not seen part of the story from his perspective. I'm not sure where I stood on the whole Ky vs. Xander situation in the first book, but I was shocked to find a lot of new information about both of them in this book. I don't really know if I can say that Ky developed, but he definitely did a lot of things and chose a lot of things that were very mature of him. 

The third, and final, book in the Matched trilogy, Reached will be released November 13, 2012.