Reached

This post first published June 23, 2014.

Author: Ally Condie
First Published: November 2012
Publisher: Dutton
Series: Matched #3
512 pages (hardcover)
 
If you’ve read my reviews for the first two books of this series, you might be wondering why I bothered reading book three, Reached, at all, since I didn’t really like the first two books that much. Well, my line of thinking was something like, “I’ve come this far, it’s the last book.” I didn’t really care about how the story was going to end, but I did want some sort of closure with the series. Well, I got to the end and it’s pretty much the same as the first two books, though somehow this one managed to be even more boring.

So, the Rising (the rebellion) is supposed to be up and fighting the Society in this final book.During all this, there is a Plague going around and our main characters are trying very hard to find the Cure for. Even worse, the Plague mutates, so that their previous Cure no longer works and they have to find a new one. And of course, during all these events, it is expected (as the third and final book in the series and all), that Cassia is going to finally make a proper decision between Xander and Ky, the two boys who are in love with her.

It all sounds very exciting, but it wasn’t. I thought book two was going to be the most boring book in the series, but I was wrong: book three is! The first 300-ish pages of this book, it honestly felt like nothing was happening. There is nothing that happens that sticks out in my mind. There was just so much “fluff” writing. It felt like the author wanted to be “deep” and thoughtful in her writing, but none of it was convincing. And while I normally like poetry, I don’t buy what this book (or rather, this series) has done with poems. They become almost like a form of currency, people trading bits of poems to get what they want. Why would a bunch of rebels who can’t even write decide that poetry was worth anything? I hardly think their Society mandated education would help them learn how to appreciate poetry, especially poetry that was written decades or even centuries ago. Maybe modern poetry … Anyway, I digress …

I kept expecting the Rising to finally do something against the Society. But there was no fighting, no nothing! I don’t NEED there to be actual fighting to be interesting, but I did expect something exciting to go down. Instead, I got this super anti-climatic realization from Cassia that the Rising and the Society are one, that the Society engineered the Rising to make people think there’s change and be satisfied. The reveal was not very exciting and the events that followed this realization were pretty boring!

The love story between Cassia, Xander and Ky ended very predictably too. I did not expect the “leftover” boy to find love too, but he did. That didn’t make me feel happy though. I feel that having the “leftover” boy find true love suddenly just undermines the “leftover” boy’s feelings for Cassia during the entire series. If he can love another girl so soon after Cassia makes up her mind about who she wants to be with, then he never truly loved Cassia at all, you know?

I don’t feel satisfied after reading this final book, but I can’t really say I’m disappointed either. I just feel nothing, like none of it mattered.

My Rating: 2/5