Book Review: Reached

Reached by Ally Condie
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I HATE Ally Condie's writing style. DETEST it. I am glad that LG and I listened to this book on tape because it helped me pin-point why she is so annoying to me. She is so flowery. Just write the dang book already. I don't want your poetry ruining my story. I know that may sound mean, and it probably is but it's not like I'm ever going to meet the lady. Let's make this clear. I love poetry. I will even take a little of it from time to time in my fiction, but just not on every page. Condie literally gets in the way of her story. That has to be some kind of author no-no.

I read the first book in the series "Matched" a while back on the reference of a friend. I wasn't crazy about it, I think I rated it three stars. The concept is great, but her writing is just so tedious. I skipped the second one "Crossed" all together and never intended to revisit the serious. However my hubby really liked it and so I let him catch me up on the story-line from book 2 so that we could do book 3 together. We had 24 hours in the car to experience this book together and both my hubby and I would look over at each other with frustration when Condie would go off on her tangents.

Overall, I love the dystopian type story and the characters were great, but I personally just can't get past the flowery overdramatic inserts all over the place. I also hate it that she tries to be all metaphorical with the "Pilot." I think it is super distracting and I am impatient with my story-receiving.

I am writing this review without finishing the last 3 chapters so I may come back and tell you I loved the end and it redeemed the rest, but I doubt it. I also hate Condie's timing. She draws out parts of the stories that aren't important and seems to skip over the parts that the reader is invested in.


View all my reviews