Crossed Review

Book Review #1: Crossed by Ally Condie

Overall Rating: 3/10

Plot: 4/10

Characters: 2/10

Writing: 2/10

Setting: 5/10

Sample Passage:  Hope looks like a footprint, a half footprint where someone grew careless and stepped into soft mud that later hardened too thick to blow away in the evening and morning winds. I try not to think of the other prints I’ve seen in these canyons, fossil remains of times so long past that nothing is left but imprints or bones of what was, what once lived. This mark is recent. I have to believe that. I have to believe that someone else is alive here. And I have to believe that it might be Ky.

Number of Pages: 367 in the hardcover version
*New Feature!* Published: 2011  

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T READ MATCHED, YOU WON’T WANT TO READ THIS!

Summary: After Ky is taken by the Society, Cassia is determined to find him.  When she finds herself at a camp with a bunch of other girls, she waits for the perfect opportunity to run. Meanwhile Ky is doing a more dangerous job than he ever expected.  No one makes it out alive there. But he is also driven by the thought of Cassia not knowing where he is to make it back to the Society to send a message to her.  When they both get opportunities to run, they find themselves in the same place, not knowing the other is there. Even if they do find each other, a secret about Xander threatens to ruin everything: their relationship, and the way they see each other.

My goodness, if Matched was unreadable, I have no idea what this is. I can’t believe I even wasted my time reading it. I had a weird love-hate relationship with Matched, but my relationship with Crossed was just…hate.  For those who have read it, I opened the book to the first relevant page, which was a map. This is me when I saw the map: “Darn.” Because the map was a bad start for me. I don’t like it when books have a map, I can’t visualize that. It was also a bad start because it was unnecessary. There were four things on the map, and truth is they make it pretty darn clear in the book where you are.  So they didn’t need the map.

But, I didn’t stop after the map because that would’ve been ridiculous. I pushed through.  And the first half of the book, I admit, kept me somewhat interested at least.  There was one annoying factor toward this book, and it is the fact that along with Cassia narrating the book, Ky is also narrating the book.  Ky annoyed me enough in the first one, I always wanted Cassia to end up with Xander, because Xander would probably put her before himself. Ky is pretty sensitive about everything, which makes him a little more self-centered, because he obsesses over his past. Which brings me to the next point of why I didn’t like this.

I’ll do a spoiler later so I can get to the specifics, but I want to try to express this thought with no spoilers.  So here’s the thing, a LOT of this book is explaining more about Ky’s story and everything, which he refuses to accept and tell people in one sitting. I don’t even really understand his story now, even after I’ve read the book, because he gives it in so many bits and pieces that it’s just hard to put it all together. Now for the spoiler alert so people who’ve read the book, or people who just like ruining things for themselves, can see what i mean.

SPOILER ALERT! ONLY READ THIS IF YOU’VE READ CROSSED OR IF YOU LIKE RUINING THINGS FOR YOURSELF!

When Ky and Cassia meet, that was where the book started to go wayyyy downhill for me.  Because Ky just HAS to make things all about him, with his past and his story and everything, which he doesn’t even really tell Cassia! It’s like, if you really want to live with her and everything, you should at least tell her the rest of your story and, oh, I don’t know, move on with your life!

UNSPOILER ALERT! YOU MAY READ SAFELY!

There are just a couple more things I would like to touch upon with this book. The characters annoy me. Almost all of them, but especially Ky and Cassia, which is unfortunate for me because they are the main characters and the narrators. But they just seem like teenagers, with their attitude and outlook on life and everything. They don’t seem as mature. Maybe it’s just how it’s written.

The writing in this book was probably what made it so bad.  I just don’t feel the characters like I love to do in books. The true feelings of the characters are in a pile underneath a bunch of shallow, irrelevant metaphors.  The description is a little too figurative, I would’ve loved it if it were more literal, especially coming from the characters. 

And I have not forgotten, in my review of Matched, I mentioned the similarity of that book to Delirium. This book is also very similar to Pandemonium. I find myself thinking, “that sounds sort of familiar…oh yeah, I read Pandemonium a couple months ago!” The plot, the rebellion, and even some of the characters match those in Pandemonium. (See what I did there? Match? As in Matched? No? Okay.)

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend reading this book unless you like shallow, boring, similar-to-Pandemonium, metephorical, bad writing, and annoying character books. And lets face it, who does?

Coming Up Next: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling or The Clique by Lisi Harrison.