Saturday, February 04, 2012

Crossed (YA)

Crossed. Ally Condie. 2011. Penguin. 368 pages.

I'm standing in a river. It's blue. Dark blue. Reflecting the color of the evening sky.

I enjoyed Matched, the first book in the series. And I was ready for the sequel, more ready than my library was apparently. I had high expectations for Crossed, and they were more than met!!! While I liked Matched, really liked it in places--though not because of the romance, more of the writing style--I just loved Crossed that much more. I thought the world-building was even better than in the first book. I thought the expanded world-building--the novel follows our hero and heroine on a journey--was great! It was impossible to put this one down. It demanded to be read in a single setting.

So. Crossed was narrated by Ky and Cassia. These two are apart at the beginning of the novel, readers actually see Cassia follow in Ky's footsteps for the first third of the novel, but the two are eventually reunited...but they're never quite alone. For Crossed introduces new characters!!! Cassia has escaped with Indie, and Ky has escaped with Vick and Eli. Each character has a story, a story they're willing to share with others, and a story that they'd never share with others because it hurts too much. I liked seeing these people team up and work together, I did. The story was definitely suspenseful in many, many ways.

Read Crossed
  • If you enjoyed Matched, the first in the series by Ally Condie
  • If you enjoy dystopia, yes, it's dystopia with a bit of romance, but the world-building can be interesting too
  • If you enjoy some action and suspense in your science fiction

© 2012 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

2 comments:

Sherry said...

I'm looking forward to reading this one, but I wonder if I should go back and re-read Matched. My memory just isn't good enough for all this wait-a-year-to-read-the-sequel stuff.

marvinthemagpie said...

Great review, I'm looking forward to reading this. I also read matched and kind of enjoyed it so hopefully Crossed is an improvement for me as well. I'm just starting to review as well and would appreciate some advice if you're not too busy! :D