***The Starry-Eyed Revue***: ally condie

Title: Reached
Author: Ally Condie
Narrator: Matt Burns, Kate Simses, and Jack Riccobono
Series: Matched, book #3 (final book in series)
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Publication Date: November 13, 2012
Source: purchased
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Audible

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.

In this gripping conclusion to the #1 New York Times-bestselling Matched Trilogy, Cassia will reconcile the difficulties of challenging a life too confining, seeking a freedom she never dreamed possible, and honoring a love she cannot live without.

Beware: Mild spoilers for Matched and Crossed but nothing that would ruin any of the books for you. Just read at your own risk.

I loved Matched. But I was bored with Crossed until the last quarter or so of the book. So, where does that leave the final book in this trilogy? Somewhere in the middle, I guess. While Crossed was your typical history-laden sequel, Reached ended up being the opposite of typical...at least for me.

Let's start with the boys. This series did start off as a somewhat star-crossed love story, after all. After Matched, I loved Ky. After Crossed, I loved Xander. After Reached, I love neither. Allow me to explain: Ky was self-sacrificing when it came to his love of Cassia. That doesn't change. But his love becomes all-consuming at some point, and it's all he cares about anymore. Xander, on the other hand, loves Cassia...as a friend and as his match, and he wants her to choose him. But even so, he joined the Rising because he felt it was the right thing to do, just as Cassia did. They'd both seen the wrongs committed by the Society and chose not to ignore them or be ignorant of them any longer, whereas Ky joined the Rising to be with Cassia.

I'm a romantic at heart, and I can see how being told who you can or can't love could make a person loyal to the only person who gave them a choice, but I'm also a realist, and in the middle of a revolution, I'd hope that my priorities were more aligned with helping others escape the persecution and discrimination I'd faced up to this point. But just as Ky was so steadfast in his loyalty to Cassia, Xander's loyalty tended to wax and wane with the turn the war was taking at any given time: loyalty to Cassia turned into loyalty to the Rising, which in turn became loyalty to the Pilot.

In Reached, there are three points of view: Cassia, Ky, and now Xander. We got Cassia and Ky's perspectives in the last book, but now that I've read from Xander's POV, I think I prefer it to the others. He's much more matter-of-fact and less emotional and well, less whiny. The narration rotated between each character as each chapter began, and it helped the story to flow, considering each character is separated from the others when the story resumes in this book. We get so much insight into what each character is feeling and what they're going through and what part they are playing in the Rising and its efforts to bring down the Society.

The pacing of this final novel wasn't exactly slow, but the book is long and it felt long at times. And I was listening to the audio...I can't imagine trying to read through some of the slower passages, all the feelings and wondering and waiting. The audio is actually narrated by three separate narrators, just as the book is split into three different narratives. Cassia is voiced by Kate Simses, who voiced Cassia in the other novels. Ky is voiced by Jack Riccobono once again. And Matt Burns completes the narration from Xander's perspective. I think I remember not liking the narrator for Ky last time around, and that hasn't changed. He was just so utterly melancholy, and I know that Ky's situation is pretty dismal at times, but that doesn't change how I feel about the narration.

Reached was a decent finale to this series. It's definitely made me rethink how I rated Crossed last year. It's just interesting to me how much a series can fluctuate from beginning to end, especially after such a promising first installment. On that note, I'm kind of just glad that it's over. I don't regret the time I've spent with these characters, but I'm ready to move on.

Rating:

1/2

Labels: ally condie, audiobooks, dystopian, matched, penguin, reviews

Okay, so I totally stole this idea from Sara at Forever 17 Books, who got the idea from an article on Babble called Judging a Book by Its Cover: A 6-year-old Guesses What Classic Novels Are All About. I just discovered her lovely segment, and I immediately ~~requested~~ forced my own four-year-old daughter Katie to provide me with some of her own cover art artwork and then asked her what she thought the book was about.

This week, Katie wanted to recreate the cover for a novel I've just finished reading: Reached, book three in the Matched series by Ally Condie. Technically, I listened to the audiobook (my review will go up tomorrow), but I'm a book hoarder, so I just so happened to have the hardcover on hand for her to duplicate:

When asked what she thought Reached was about, Katie immediately responded, "Broken hearts."

Cover Art:

Reached by Katie

I love how she drew the black lines in the red globe to represent the cracks in it. I think she captured Cassia breaking free very well. And I think she's on to something with that "broken hearts" theory. =)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I hope you all get to spend some quality time with loved ones today!