Review: Crossed by Ally Condie

Book: Crossed by Ally Condie
Genre: YA Dystopian
Rating: A-
For: Support Local Authors!
From: ARC from the author/publisher (book released Nov. 1, 2011)

This book begins shortly after the first book, Matched, leaves us. (Spoilers for Matched ahead.) Cassia has been sent to work in the Outer Provinces, and she hopes to track down Ky, who has also been sent to work... rather to fight in the wars. Both of them end up escaping into a land formation called The Carving, which I thought was cool because I could totally picture in my head as some of the awesome landscapes found in Southern Utah that I imagine it to look like. Such as this:

or this:

Most of the story takes place here as they make their way to try and meet up with The Rising, those fighting against The Society. Along the way, they meet several new characters who I really enjoyed and who add a lot to the story, especially a young boy named Eli. We also meet another fugitive group in The Carving called The Farmers. The intensity builds as they try to figure out and learn more about all these different groups and  who they can really trust... or not.

I myself, got a bit confused on this part. Besides The Society, The Rising, and The Farmers, there's also The Enemy! I'm really curious as to who THOSE people are, because it is not explained at all. Unless I'm just being especially unobservant! So who IS the enemy? The Society I thought, but as things progress, you really start to wonder what's truly going on. And sadly this book doesn't provide many answers. Book three maybe?

We didn't see much of Xander in this book either, which disappointed me. I enjoy all that love triangle confusion and tension! However, he does provide information that makes Cassia (and therefore us as readers) even more confused. Which side is he on anyway!

By the time the ending arrives, I feel like we haven't learned much and that we are quite back to where we started! So now I'm particularly anxious for the next book... a whole other year away!

Anyway, despite some of my issues with this book, I still totally enjoyed the reading of it and am invested in these characters and want so badly for them to work things out. I liked that the chapters were alternating between the voice of Cassia and Ky, so we could get into both their heads. Very fun.

Bottom line: I enjoyed it much!

Other Reviews:

One Literature Nut
My Overstuffed Bookshelf
The Paper Reader
Alternate Readality

Here's the book trailer for those who enjoy them. I liked it, (it reminded me that I love the poetry bits in this book too!) though the boys weren't very much at all how I pictured them. Nope, not at all.