Crossed by Ally Condie

*This review will contain spoilers for the first book in this trilogy, Matched*

For my next task in the Book Junkie Trials, I had to read the next book in a series. Since I read Matched earlier in this challenge, I decided that its sequel, Crossed, was the most logical pick here. I enjoyed Matched well enough. It was a serviceable, if unremarkable, young adult dystopian novel. I was interested enough in finding out more about the story to continue on with it, but honestly, I didn't have very high hopes for this next installment. In my experience, series like this tend to get worse as they go on. Determined to give it a shot anyway, I loaded it up on my Kindle and got started.

This novel picks up directly where Matched left off, with Ky sent away to fight in a mysterious war against the Enemy and Cassia getting herself placed in a work camp in the outer provinces to try and find him. The narration alternates between the two characters, with each chapter giving readers a little bit more of their journey to try and reunite with each other.

Ky's journey starts off with him realizing the true purpose of his military assignment. He hasn't been sent to fight in a war, he's been sent to die in one. He, along with a large group of other aberration boys, are tasked with posing as farmers in a long-abandoned settlement to confuse the Enemy's intelligence on the population and spread of Society citizens. The Enemy shows up to bomb the settlement on a regular basis, and several of the boys die in these attacks each day. As the dead boys are removed, new boys are shipped in, and the process continues indefinitely. Ky manages to survive in this situation for several weeks, but finally escapes with a few other boys at an opportune moment. He sets out to hide in The Carving, a system of canyons and rivers that he remembers from his childhood.

Cassia's journey begins when she manages to get herself reassigned to the same settlement Ky was working in through a bit of deception. Upon arriving there, she learns that she missed him by a few days; he has already escaped to The Carving. Heartened that he is still alive, she sets off along with another girl to follow his trail. By discovering little items and tracks he has left behind, she eventually manages to catch up with him.

Once the pair come back together, Cassia's attention shifts to the Rising, a rebel group working against the Society. She longs to find their base and become part of their movement. She assumes Ky will fight alongside her there, but he is unenthusiastic about the idea. There are secrets in his past connecting him the Rising already, and based on those prior experiences, he doesn't trust them. He would rather stay out of any fighting and make a life with Cassia somewhere far away, outside of Society control. Cassia's heart is set on rebellion, however, so Ky must decide if he will join her and fight, or head off on his own, losing her forever.

I went into reading this with low expectations, and, unfortunately, my instincts were correct. Crossed, is not a good book. It's not even a fun read, the way Matched was. This was due to two main issues: the lack of plot, and the writing style.

Simply put, there are not enough plot events in Crossed to tell a satisfying story.  I suspect this was why Condie decided to use two narrators, as it allowed her to give two perspectives on every event. This almost doubled the amount of pages she could fill, but it had the overall effect of making the story overwhelmingly boring. In addition to the lack of action, the twists and secrets that were revealed were underwhelming and poorly implemented. Rather than let important information be revealed organically at moments strategically placed throughout the story, Condie directly states that characters have "secrets" in the text, and then refuses to say what the secrets are until later in the book. It is a cheap way to drum up suspense, and it is especially disappointing here, as this wasn't an issue in Matched. The information that is revealed by the end of the novel isn't especially surprising or interesting, making the slog through the text feel pointless.

The other main issue here is the voices of the characters. Both Cassia and Ky speak in the exact same way across the chapters. Once they meet up, which occurs about halfway through the story, it becomes very difficult to remember which one is currently narrating. That's a problem in and of itself, but what makes it worse is that the voice both characters use is incredibly dramatic; their inner monologues are completely saturated with tortured metaphors and fragments of poetry. Their thoughts do not remotely resemble the way anyone thinks in real life, and it seriously damages what little story there is.

 Examples of this abound. I could list one from every page if I wanted to, but I will mention just two. Towards the beginning of the story, Ky, looking at a map, thinks, "I wish I could rewrite this map. It would be much easier to mark how I want the world to be, instead of trying to figure out how it really is."  Later, Cassia, upon looking upwards one morning thinks, "Only the sun is in the sky. Nothing flies. There are no angels here." And it just goes on like this. Every thought both characters have is intensely melodramatic. It made it impossible to take much of the book seriously, and it was very odd as well, because Cassia didn't think like this in the first book.

Obviously, I didn't find much to enjoy in Crossed. I didn't start out with high hopes, and I actually ended up being more disappointed than I thought I would be. The thin plot and clumsy delivery made this a tough read to get through, and I generally cut young adult books a lot of slack. That is my guilty pleasure genre, and I like most things I read within it. This book, however, was a total miss for me and probably the worst sequel I have read in recent memory. That being said, I still plan on reading Reached, the third and final book in the series. It's already part of my read-a-thon plan and my hatred of leaving a book series unfinished is stronger than my dislike of this novel. I'm hoping that Ally Condie saved all the good stuff for last.


Challenge Tally
Book Junkie Trials (The Forgotten Forests - Read the next book in a series) 8/17
Finally in 2019: 28/6 Books Read - Complete!

Total Books Read in 2019: 46