Crossed by Ally Condie

[katekintailbc]

Crossed
by Ally Condie
(Audio)

I hate giving up on a series, because I think it's important to know how things turn out in plot and character arcs in order to accurately judge any book in a series. However, it took me FOUR separate times getting this book out on download from the library before I finally finished it and I really have no interest in reading Reached at this point.

I really enjoy the concept of the world this series is set in--the control that is put on life and culture and all the problems/solutions that come with it is interesting. And the characters are all right as well. But nothing happened for me in Crossed. Sure, Kasha and Kai escaped society and found each other & the rebels, but so much of this book was exposition and wandering through canyons separately or together. And I really love Xander, who only made one appearance (really just as a foil and to help move along more explanation of things). Yes, it was good learning more about the outcasts and the rebels and their world outside of the town we see in Matched, but none of that was interesting enough to me and apart from a lot of walking, not enough happened to keep me wanting to find out more.

New characters were introduced, but because of the POVs, you still don't learn a whole lot about them apart from a few things they reveal from their backgrounds. And, speaking of POVs, earreading this made the POV-switching SO not of the fun. Every single time another chapter started with another POV and either Kasha's or Kai's name was said to indicate whose POV it was, I got more and more annoyed. I feel like I heard their names WAY too much. And the female/male reader's voice changing was more than enough to indicate it to me. After a while, I started saying it along with the reader. "Chapter Whatever: Kasha. Chapter this one: Kai" It drove me crazy enough to just want to finish the book and be done with it so I wouldn't hear that any more.

In all, it was an okay middle book, I guess. It ended in a place where a third book could pick up and be super exciting. Which is good, because absolutely nothing super exciting or even remotely exciting happened in this book. There were several great emotional scenes and there was lots of exposition and new characters thrown into the mix; that's really about it.