Book Review: Crossed

Crossed
by  Ally Condie
Date Read:  12/15/2012
Rating:  ★ ★ ★

This book was not as good as the first. This book was actually pretty slow. Not a lot happened.

First, there are two perspectives in this book - Cassia and Ky. Now, while I liked getting a more in depth look at Ky's character, Condie didn't do a good enough job of differentiating their voices. I found myself several times losing track of who's POV I was reading. With the two perspectives, the book covered the same amount of time from both perspectives, which is why I think it felt like it progressed so slow to me.

The pace was really slow. It starts out roughly where the first book left off. Cassia goes to the work camp to try to find a way to find Ky. Along the way she learns things about the Rising, and then you're not sure whether she wants to find Ky now or the Rising, more. You learn Ky is out in one of the villages as a decoy. He decides to run to try to save himself and a couple friends. Then they chase each other through the Carving. And that is where the book mostly takes place. Nothing else really happens until the VERY end of the book. The book isn't hard to read, but it sure didn't suck me in. And I wasn't as surprised at the ending this time around. I was hoping for better revelations.

I did like the new characters that were introduced in this book though. Vick and Eli were fun. But I really liked Indie. She reminded me a lot of Isabelle from the Mortal Instruments. That's pretty much who I pictured throughout the book. I liked her strength. And then learning about her story. The revelation about her toward the end of the book was really good. I thought that was executed very well. I wasn't expecting that.

The book started out very choppy. There were a lot of paragraph breaks. Sometimes the chapters were only a page long - I feel like just to get someone's inside thoughts since they wouldn't say it out loud.

I don't know. I wasn't as happy with this book. Not that Matched was mind blowing or anything, but it was still good. But this one left something to be desired for me. And I thought the last paragraphs were annoying - who is she going to meet? You hope it's Ky, but I have a very strong feeling it's going to be Xander. We'll see. I just hope the series finishes out stronger. This definitely had that middle book feel. Which is unfortunate.