Reached
Ally Condie
Penguin
Published on November 13, 2012
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
After leaving Society to desperately seek 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 is assigned undercover in Central city, Ky outside the borders, an airship pilot with Indie. Xander is a medic, with a secret. All too soon, everything shifts again.
My Review
Reached was my favorite book in this series. Through all three books, poetry has served as a kind of rallying point, encouraging Cassia and Ky and others to oppose the Society. In Reached, though, Cassia takes her love of art further by beginning to create her own and to gather others who do the same. At first, she’s told that creating new things doesn’t matter. Even The Rising, which she values so highly, doesn’t hold any love for creativity. Cassia doesn’t agree with them, so she faces a choice on whether to be totally devoted to The Rising, which she’s always dreamed of, or to be kind of on her own side. A free agent, more like Ky has always been.
In some ways this story reminded me of the Matrix trilogy, where things are not at all as they seem. The Society. The Rising. The pandemic sweeping through the provinces. There’s always more going on beneath what they’re telling Cassia, Xander, and Ky. I loved that layered feeling it gave the story. And I loved that it made the story about more than an uprising and shift in power. The answer wasn’t as simple as swapping The Society for The Rising. Which made the story a lot more interesting to me.
I definitely recommend the series to readers looking for clean dystopian books. The second book was a little draggy to me, but on the whole, I thought the series was good.
Recommended for Ages 12 up.
Cultural Elements
Major characters are white.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl.
Spiritual Content
Cassia wonders about what people experience after death as she’s flying and seeing the sky and clouds.
Violent Content
A vicious illness spreads rapidly through the population, unleashed by one group as part of a battle strategy.
Drug Content
The Society gives each person a case with three pills in it. The red pill causes memory loss, and is used by the Society to make people forget things they’ve done or seen.
