Books 32 & 33: Crossed and Reached by Ally Condie

I finally finished book 2 and 3 of the Matched trilogy.  I guess finally isn't really the right word, since I did finish them both within a months time (which can be quick for me).  Maybe I am using the term 'finally" because it was not as enjoyable as I would have liked.

If you read my original post on Matched, you will see I was sort of into the series and happy with what was there.  I felt there was some meat to the YA story, some interesting ideas.  Sadly, however, once I started reading Crossed (book 2) I quickly saw that all I found interesting was gone and replaced by a romance story (which I get is the point because it is YA).  I felt like most of book 2 was unnecessary and that really if she felt she needed to go from book 1 that Crossed and Reached could have been combined, but then we would be breaking the YA mold and how can it be YA if it is not a trilogy. (sigh)

Once I got to Reached I thought it got a little better, but only marginally, and then it got into the dreaded trope where it needed to have all the ends tied up.  Have I mentioned I hate that.

Also, I found Book 2 confusing by moving from Cassia's point of view to switching chapters POV's between both Cassia and Ky.  Then taking it even further by adding Xander's POV on Reached.

I won't be upset if my daughter wants to read it, and I would recommend it to someone who is younger and looking for something to read, but I would not rave about it and  would probably point out that there are better series or books out there.

One good thing that came out of it for me is I realized I do enjoy Utopian books.  I would like to read more of them.  I did a quick good reads search to get suggestions, and of course I am seeing a lot of YA Dystopian series out there.  But I will find something.

Right now I am reading The Giver in preparation for the movie.

Book 29: Matched by Ally Condie

My daughter who is 10 loves to read and she is a pretty advanced reader for her age.  And since I love to read I thought it would be nice to start a Mother-Daughter book club so we could share the love of books.  Initially I was only going to have it be the two of us, but I thought I could open it up to a few close friends.

I initially picked Matched as a our first book before I invited others to join in.  They had a concern on the book I selected.  the concern was how a love triangle would be dealt with and if our 10 year olds should be dealing with dating and that sort of thing.  I agreed and decided we would move on to another book.  However, I had already started the book and my daughter was still interested so I went ahead and finished it.  At this time my daughter has not finished so I can't speak to her views, I am hoping that will come later.

For me, considering this is a young adult novel, I enjoyed it very much.  First of all I found the love triangle to be handled very well and in a very PG manner.  Between the two love interests it is very clear that one is more romantic than the other.  I also liked that the courting of the characters presented itself in the act of learning to write cursive and the sharing of banned poetry.

Even with  the story being rooted in the "matching" of young adults, the dating and the relationship factor played in the background of this first novel of the trilogy.  More interesting was the "Society" and how Cassia starts to have her eyes opened to what is happening around her. 


I found this a good introduction to the Utopian genre.  Condie seems to have put some thought into her Society and it functions and how it progressed to get to its present state.  I am very interested in how my daughter will interpret how this society functions and what she thinks of their choices.  I do think there is a lot that could be discussed, and I am sort of sad that it got nixed as our first book.