SLIDER

Join The Rising?

Reached by Ally Condie

Release Date: November 2012
Publisher: Penguin | Dutton Juvenile
Pages: 512 pages
Source & Format: Gift; Kindle ebook
Series: Matched #3
Amazon Goodreads

Summary (from Goodreads)
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.

Thoughts on Reached
I really enjoyed Matched, but I was then really disappointed by Crossed. I'd found it long, slow and mostly boring. After a fun beginning, I hated that the second book was such a letdown.

When Reached was finally released, I asked for it as a Christmas gift. Even though I hadn't loved each book, I knew that I wanted to finish the series. Since I had such mixed feelings on the series at that point, I let this book just on my Kindle for months. I kept intending to read it, but I just couldn't bring myself to actually do it.

I'm so glad I put it on my goals list for the Summer Series Challenge because that finally gave me the push I needed to read it! Once I started, I actually finished this book in two days. Thankfully, I definitely thought this was an improvement over the second book.

Like the previous book, this book uses alternating perspectives. This time, however, it's actually Ky, Cassia and Xander. All three tell the story from their point-of-view. While I found it annoying in the last book, I thought the concept worked much better in this one. I still had to pay close attention to which section I was reading (so there wasn't always a clear "voice" for me), but I did think that it helped the pacing of the book.

A large part of Reached focuses on The Rising. Events are set into motion in Reached - so the pacing was better than in Matched. I thought the book moved much more quickly than I'd expected. Part of the action involves medical concepts. I found the details a little tedious at certain points, but it didn't detract too significantly from the rest of the book.

I wasn't entirely surprised by the resolution of the love triangle, but I did think it was one of the weakest aspects of this series. It always felt like that had been thrown in for a little added drama, so I still wasn't a huge fan of it in this one. However, each of the three characters has their own storyline in this one, so it was nice that the guys weren't there solely for the love triangle. I enjoyed that everyone got their own story that was resolved by the end of the book.

I think that part of the reason I enjoyed Reached was due to the fact that, sadly, I went in with such low expectations after Matched. Expecting to hate this one, I was pleasantly surprised and thought it was a good conclusion to this series. Did I love the series? Not really. But I'm glad I read Reached and finished it off.

So Quotable
"And it strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really. A collaboration between you who give the words and those who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed."

4 comments

  1. I was disappointed with Reached, largely because of the weak resolution of the love triangle, but also because the storyline about The Rising and what they had done had SO MUCH POTENTIAL and I just felt like it really didn't live up to it. And everything about that town they went to work on the cure was just so weird, which I guess was the point, but I didn't like any of the scenes from there.

    Cassia also really got on my nerves in this book. Maybe I'm mostly bitter because I chose the losing team, but I also just get frustrated when books show promise but fall flat. Like you I really liked Matched, didn't love Crossed, but I think I expected Reached to be kind of "fix" Crossed instead of lowering my expectations like you did, so that may have played a role in my disappointment.

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    1. I agree on SO many of the points you made! I think since I had such low expectations going in, I was able to just accept that this book/series wasn't really going to be what I wanted it to be. I do think the love triangle was terrible, the Rising didn't live up to potential and the cure thing was weird. I think if I'd expected to fix what happened in Crossed, I'd be writing the exact same things. Since I kinda expected to hate it, I was mostly fine with the way it worked out because it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. Haha!

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  2. Okay, so I've read the first book and I really liked it because I actually thought it felt really dystopian-ish, which I thought was fun. But for some reason I never pursued the second one and then I heard that the third book had a really confusing ending. SO since I really liked the first book, should I pursue the series or not? Thoughts? I think you know my reading style enough that I trust whatever you say. I haven't spent any money on these so they'd be library loans.

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    1. I honestly don't know. Personally, I was disappointed by the series and kind of wish I hadn't continued past book one. However, I also know that sometimes you feel differently about things than other people do (like the Delirium trilogy, for example) so I'm not sure.

      A part of me says just read book two - that will give you an idea of whether or not to finish. If you hate book two, just know that book three is more of the same. If you like book two, you might enjoy the series overall. There is, however, a pain in the butt love triangle. I like triangles if handled okay but this one was mostly annoying.

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