Review: Reached by Ally Condie

Reached
Author: Ally Condie
Series: Matched, #3

Summary: After leaving Society and desperately searching for the Rising—and each other—Cassia and Ky have found what they were looking for, but at the cost of losing each other yet again: Cassia has been assigned to work for the Rising from within Society, while Ky has been stationed outside its borders. But nothing is as predicted, and all too soon the veil lifts and things shift once again.

In this gripping conclusion to the #1 New York Times-bestselling Matched trilogy, Cassia will reconcile the difficulties of challenging a life too confining, seeking a freedom she never dreamed possible, and honoring a love she cannot live without.

Review

NOTE: This review contains spoilers. If you haven't read the previous books in this series, please read my review of Matched instead.


Cassia Reyes has finally got what she wanted: to be a part of the Rising. The only problem? She's been sent to live undercover in Central, far away from Ky who has been left in the borders to train to become a pilot, and away from Xander who has been sent to Camas to become a medic. We follow this story through the eyes of Cassia, Ky and Xander. They are all now part of the Rising, all with mixed feeling about themselves, what they are doing and the Pilot. Cassia is living in Central, sorting data. Xander has been working on the Risings plan, something that they need to work before they can come in and save the people from the Society. It is clear that Xander believes very strongly in the Pilot from the very beginning, but when things start unraveling before his eyes, he has to be strong. All Ky wants is to find Cassia and run away with her, somewhere no one can find them. Cassia wants that too, but she also wants her family.

Things fall apart rather quickly, and after that everything turns to chaos. The Pilot, who was supposed to be the savior of the people, the face of peace, becomes desperate in a race against time. He knows that if he doesn't find a way to turn things around fast, he'll lose the battle against the Society and lose faith in the people he's trying to save.

Cassia, Ky and Xander are thrown together to work on finding what the Pilot needs, but when one of them unexpectedly can't be of help, the other two must put their faith in each other and the new people around them, to find away to help the third.

This is a very lovely finale to a wonderful trilogy. I can't say much about this book without going into details about what happens and I definitely don't want to spoil it for those of you who haven't read this one yet. I was very pleased with the ending. It actually turned out better than I expected. Several people do end up dying, but few of them are close to our three main characters so there wasn't any crying from this girl (though at one point I thought there was going to be). The beginning of the book was slow-going for me, but after I got through that part things sped up quite a bit. Cassia and Ky's relationship is probably one of my favorites of all the series I've read. I also really enjoyed the relationship that the three of them shared together. Even though both Ky and Xander loved Cassia, they didn't let that get in the way of what they had to do, the rebellion/Rising, or their friendship. They were very adult about it, which you don't see much of in a young adult romance. The Pilot was kind of a disappointment to me. Even though the characters actually saw him in person, we didn't get a good description of what he looked like. He also didn't have as much personality as I would've hoped. We learn things about him like what he did before he was Pilot, how he became Pilot, and other little things. We also learn about one of his predecessors. Even so, he wasn't at all what I expected. I am sad to see this series end, but I can't wait to see what Ally has in store for us next.

I rate this book: