Read Online Crossed (Matched, #2) Edited By Ally Condie Paperback
one told ally condie that the second book in a trilogy is not a resting place, not an opportunity to catch your breath and count your cash.
you gotta write something, too, is that mean probably. is it true definitely.
even though i wasn't crazy about matched, i wanted to read the next installment just to see where she was going with her brand of dystopia, and with these characters.
and also, truthfully, because i am such a sucker for covers, and i love these, i think she might put more time and care into maneuvering the art direction than the Crossed's contents,
i am reading only YA fiction now, because it is fast and i don't have to focus too much on it because i have all sort of school that is more important than leisure reading.
but this. who told YA fiction it could be boring and ponderous and be basically a set piece to store your leftover overblown teenangst poetry it is still briskpaced, but you never get the sense that anything is actually happening, it is just a collection of words broken up by flashes of descriptive writing in italics that is meant to sound poetry but instead just gives unpleasant flashbacks to me at, weeping into my journal.
everyone seems heavily drugged in this, there is a lot of ruminating on the nature of beauty and color and art and loooove and poetry god such bad poetry and it just seems lazy.
okay, so you are going to use two narrators in this one good move, ambitious, but this is a splitnarrative between two people who have the exact same voice! no wonder they are in love, it is as though they are the same.
exact. character. with the same. exact. way of expressing themselves. what are the odds of these crazy kids finding each other
and it's not just them none of the characters come into relief, for me.
they are all hollowseeming, mouthing their lines and emotions, working towards this idea of rebellion without seeming to understand what that means, i just don't get a sense of urgency, should we leave the canyons yeah, after the rain, let's read some more poems, are people after us shrug, prolly,
ramp this up!
this is what happens to people taken out of the rigid confines of the society they lounge around looking through old maps and remember their mommies and manage to have a love triangle even when only two of its members are even in the book the rising is going to eat you alive, unless everyone in that group shares the same voice, too, which would not surprise me, actually.
matched was ersatz dystopia, this book is ersatz survival, as the characters evade what has to be the slowest threat ever, and huddle together in caves and go rafting and climbing like some outward bound program for extremely sheltered teens.
but leaving them plenty of time to become dewyeyed with love and scribble away,
i marked a map for every death
for every ache and blow
my world was all a page of black
with nothing left of snow
i bet xander's "big secret" is that he is glad cassia is gone because she is so flimsily constructed, and he is going to go into another book and try his luck there.
love triangle collapsed!
'
i do feel bad, but i am not saying anything i don't feel to be true, and this woman is going to make a ton of money with this series and the inevitable movie rights, so i don't need to be overly charitable here.
this book just isn't very good, but it won't matter.
and because of my nature, i will indeed be reading the third book, but it had better SHINE, and not just the cover art this time,
sitelinkcome to my blog! It's hard to even know exactly where to begin, I wanted so badly to love this book, because I have been dying to read it from the moment I finished Matched last year, which I had givento.
While Matched is perhaps closer toat times, ultimately I found myself very interested in the World that Condie built and in the relationships developed throughout the book.
Unfortunately loving Crossed is out of the question and I realized this very early on,
The book begins right where Matched left off, I won't go into what happens in the book, since so many people have already covered that, but I will say that little happens that falls outside of the description of the book.
This book is SO slow.
There were many times where I would close my Kindle App and start playing Words with Friends, because the book would get to such a boring state that I wanted to wake myself up a bit before trying to continue on.
I feel like a very large portion of the book could have been cut out and I would have enjoyed it just the same.
Better yet, had they cut a huge portion of the book out and replaced it with things that ACTUALLY mattered, I would have loved it, just as I had hoped to.
Boredom aside, the other large complaint I have about Crossed is the alternating narratives, Now, don't get me wrong, I actually quite enjoy alternating narratives and I enjoy seeing things from a different perspective, but not if you cannot determine whose POV you are reading from.
There were MANY times where the only way I could differentiate between who was speaking was to turn back to the chapter page to see if it was titled Cassia or Ky.
Neither of the two main characters had a distinct voice for a good chunk of the chapters, I think toward the end I did find it easier to differentiate between the two, as I much preferred reading from Ky's POV, Cassia for the later part of the book got on my nerves, a lot,
Another aspect that kind of bothered me after the fact was that I did not really feel that Cassia and Ky had a huge connection.
I realize they are doing these crazy things to get to each other, but I just didn't feel it, From Ky's POV, I did feel he loved her and I found his love so endearing, but from Cassia's POV, I felt the truest emotions felt were for Xander, which wasn't what I expected and I don't think it was what the author intended.
To go through what they have, I expect there to be an intense love between the two, as you would have no motivation otherwise to go through these things and I just did not feel it.
Now, this may just be me, as I have seen plenty of reviews where people swooned over their love, but I just did not feel that connection when I read from Cassia's POV.
It all felt very superficial, This was one of the factors that toward the end helped me better differentiate between the two POVs if the love seemed sincere, I knew it was Ky, otherwise I knew it had to be Cassia.
The last thing that really bothered me was the vagueness of it all, Who is The Enemy How can an entire book go on about The Enemy attacking without once implying who they may be Are they Farmers, people from the Rising, people from Society I don't know and neither will you, not even after reading the entire book.
We also learn very little about the Rising and even less about the Society.
I would have enjoyed this so much more if the author had replaced some of the many pages about how some random item like a leaf reminds the character of some random day like in the Spring ofok that is seriously what a large part of the book was like with a better explanation about who these different groups are and/or what their motivations are.
These four major things aside, there were aspects I liked about the book, I really enjoyed the new characters that were introduced, particularly Eli and Vick , however it seems Indie is the character who will probably be one of the most important supporting characters.
I haven't entirely decided on if I like Indie or not, but I think that was perhaps the intent of the author, so she did her job well in that aspect! While I liked Xander in the first book, I loved him in the second.
Even though Xander makes only one physical appearance in the book, he is spoken about a lot and you learn so much more about who he is I developed quite a fondness for him.
I think ultimately in book, he will end up with .
I also felt as they traveled throughout the canyons that I had a very clear picture of what everything looked like, how everyone felt.
. . I could easily picture these poisoned rivers and painted caves and found the descriptions were great, In fact, I found some pieces of the writing beautiful, Unfortunately these things that I liked did not really makeup for the parts that drove me crazy, so I still finished the book a bit disappointed.
. . okay, VERY disappointed. Had this not been a sequel to a book I so enjoyed, I would not have finished it or I would have taken months to finish it.
While this book did have it's flaws, I still plan to read therd one to see how this journey will end, Augh, the first part of this story was horrible! Dead bodies everywhere, Ky being really depressed, Cassia risking her life and running off to look for Ky when she had absolutely no plan and no clue what she was doing.
It was bad. The writing itself was okay, but I had the audiobook at xspeed and was still bored half the time, Admittedly, a few of the scenes were interesting, but I liked the first book better, I'll still be moving on to the third book, but this one was a disappointment,
Psst Stephanie. Wake up, it's over.
Oh, man, Did I fall asleep again It's not my fault, Really, it isn't. If only Crossed had just a little bit more action and a lot less poetry, it would have been able to keep my attention focused on reading the book instead of hitting my REM cycle.
That's not to say I didn't entirely enjoy Crossed, but it also didn't live up to my expectations,
Crossed picks up where sitelinkMatched left off, Ky had been sent away to the Outer Provinces and Cassia is currently residing in a girl's work camp, In this installment she travels to the Outer Provinces to find Ky, while he somehow escapes the Outer Provinces to be reunited with Cassia back in the Society.
A few new discoveries are made regarding the Society and an apparent rebellion called the Rising, Along the way, enough poetry to give Maya Angelou a headache is recited and flashbacks to Ky's past are also included,
I had high hopes for this book mostly because I did enjoy Matched, I enjoyed the "Do not go
gently" theme and Condie's poetic writing style, But for some reason it just didn't work out too well for me in Crossed, I liked how the PoVs switched back and forth between Ky and Cassia, In fact, I am a fan of that particular style, when done correctly, However, in this case I found it difficult to tell who was who, Cassia and Ky's voice sounded exactly alike to me, I found myself flipping back to the beginning of the chapters to confirm who was narrating, Because of this I slowly felt myself becoming disconnected from the characters even with learning further details about Ky's past,
The Characters:
One thing I did enjoy about the book were the introduction of the minor characters, While traveling to the Outer Provinces to find Ky, Cassia teams up with a girl named Indie, At first I really liked Indie because she was brave, sharp, and determined, But aroundof the book she seemed too sneaky to me and I didn't appreciate her lying to Cassia about the Rising, At one point she even She also steals from Cassia and Cassia has the nerve to ask, "What else has she been hiding Does she even think we are friends" Umm.
. . Cassia Someone who steals and lies is not a friend, I do think she created an interesting dynamic to the story, but I'm not entirely sure I liked her as a character,
Ky also travels with two other companions: a boy named Eli who reminds him of Bram Cassia's younger brother and Vick, I actually liked both of those new characters very much, In fact, they were my saving grace for this book, To me they seemed to be the only two characters that actually expressed realistic reactions to things, Eli asks questions that should be asked and Vick gets angry when everyone else is maintaining unrealistic calmed facade, I didn't like how Condie , I felt she did that to attempt a realistic reunion for Cassia and Ky, I didn't buy that for one minute because it seemed very deliberate on Condie's part and forced,
Cassia and Ky irritated me to no end, especially Ky, He knew about the Rising since Matched and never told Cassia, I was willing to accept that until he continued to try and hide his knowledge after their reunion, He was extremely selfish in this book, Not only that, but his explanation as to why he didn't want to join the Rising didn't make much sense to me and it ultimately almost breaks them up.
After they have traveled all that time endangering their lives, they almost throw it completely away, Unbelievable. Cassia is no better because she waits until the last possible moment to confront Indie and Ky, Great. Just great. Another complacent heroine.
Condie does manage to keep Xander in the picture despite his small page time, Both Cassia and Ky think of him often and have flashbacks involving him, And it also appears that a lovesquare may be forming, Yes, feel free to gtinsert eye rolling herelt,
The Prose:
There are a few quotes that I really loved in Crossed, Like this one:
Everyone has something of beauty about them, In the beginning for me, it was Kys eyes I noticed, and I love them still, But loving lets you look, and look, and look again, You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk, When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts.I think Condie is gifted with writing some truly beautiful passages, However, when the entire book is filled with your characters sitting on rocks reciting poetry every few pages, my patience tends to fly out the window.
But when you see the one you love as pieces, as whyswhy he walks like this, why he closes his eyes like thatyou can love those parts, too, and its a love at once more complicated and more complete.
One minute I'm reading Crossed and the next minute I'm:
A Falling asleep
Or
B Getting distracted by squirrels
I'm not even sure where the climax was because I was just that bored with the plot, characters, everything.
It was like watching the Peanut gang's parents go, "Blah, blah, blah, blah, " LOL. Maybe I fell asleep at that part, It really wouldn't surprise me if that were the case,
The World Building:
I was hoping to see more world building in this installment, but I was once again left with many unanswered questions.
Who runs the Society How are these rebels slipping in and out of the Society if the Society has such a strict eye on things Who put Ky's name into the Matching pool Where are all the Provinces located Several are mentioned in the book, but I have no idea where they are located.
I feel this series could really use a world map, Speaking of the world, is the Society located over the entire world The way it is described seems like it's only in one part of the world.
What in the world is the Warming It's mentioned in Crossed, but it's not really explained well, Are there no gay society members So many questions, so little time, and so little fucks of mine to give, I hope these questions will be answered in final book, but at this point I won't hold my breath,
I'd recommend this book to strong supporters and fans of Matched, If you felt Matched was just an "ok" read for you, chances are you will be disappointed with its sequel Crossed.
Poetry inspired by Crossed!
Roses are red
Violets are blue
This book may bore you
And put your ass to sleep too!
More reviews and more at sitelinkCuddlebuggery Book Blog.
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