Review: Reached by Ally Condie

Title: Reached
Author: Ally Condie
Genre: young-adult, dystopia, post-apocalyptic
Series: Matched #3
Pages: 512 (hardcover edition)
Published: November 2012
Source: purchased
Rating: 2/5

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.

Reviewed by Danielle.

Sometimes an author should stop at one. The Matched series has gone progressively downhill and Reached is by far the worst of the three. Overlong and disjointed, the three points-of-view are supposed to flesh out Xander but only serve to take pull focus off the few interesting ideas.

Once again, Cassia is separated from Ky and must choose between the best friend she's always loved and the mysterious Aberration she's in love with. Xander has infiltrated the Society as a member of the Rising administrating special anti-Society vaccines and curing a plague the Society accidentally started. Ky's still working as a pilot, delivering the cure to the cities, and Cassia's sorting and bringing art and poetry back to the masses.

Until the three meet back up, more than halfway though the book, it's painfully dull and Cassia especially has to be unbelievably stupid for the plot to work. She continually trusts people she doesn't know, doesn't question obvious inconsistencies in the Rising, and really does nothing but twiddle her thumbs while the men cure a pandemic. Xander also ignores the fact that the Rising is really, obviously crooked, but since we've barely seen him since the trilogy started, maybe he was always tragically naive. Ky continues to be suspicious of everyone, thus proving he's the only one with the sense God gave a mouse. Of course, he continues to go along with everything, so let's not get crazy.

Fortunately, they do all meet up and travel outside the society to Endstone, the last village in a string leading to the Otherlands. Their work on the plague in the village is the only redeeming factor to the book. Several interesting new characters with complex emotions and desires are introduced, which only serve as a counter to how flat the main characters have become.

If we worked hard, cured the plague, and lived happily ever after, I might even bump the score up. But no, we then have a hundred pages to wrap up the love triangle. I don't mind love triangles nearly as much as some other reviewers, but this one is painful. The choice has been clear for 3 books, no matter how many times Cassia says she loves him but..., so the author attempts to give the loser his own happy ending. It involves, despite just losing the self-proclaimed love of his life, the guy hooking up with a dead character's girlfriend in an end that's basically,

"I loved a man, but he died."
"I love another girl who loves someone else."
"..."
"..."
"Soul mates?"
"Cool, let me just send a letter to Cassia telling her I've TOTALLY moved on."

Despite saying this is the end, the book is definitely left open for more stories in the world. Ky's family is still missing, there's a lot left open in the society, and we still haven't seen the Enemy or the Otherlands. If she does decide to revisit the world, I hope she abandons these characters because they have nothing left to say.