larksinger 's review for:

Reached by Ally Condie

3.0

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Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo. I'm having a really difficult time with books lately. I start out loving them (Maybe it's the excited optimist in me) and then get to the end and think, "Oh WOW, that was it?" Sad to admit, thats exactly what happened while reading these books by Ally Condie. Initially, I was really excited, this whole dystopian society thing kinda freaked me out because of how controlling and manipulative it was, their officials/regulations/laws/and way of life that the people of the different towns were being forced under and I sure hoped that somehow these people would be freed from such dictatorship - which they do, but in a very strange subtle way. The author is Mormon, and her writing seemed to hint at some sort of savior, "the pilot" that would rescue everything and everybody from the legalistic way of life that was being forced on them daily. From a Christian point of view, I was thinking that she was possibly hinting about either her Mormon faith, or even coming out of mormonism, however it was too hard to tell by the end of the books. I was hoping for some sort of super climactic ending where everybody was happy being saved and lived out their days together. I guess in some ways that happened, but it sort of fell flat.

I loved the references to herbology, the poetry (by Dylan Thomas in particular) that urges people to not go down without a fight - do not go gentle!!! But as a whole, I will just let it go with this - It's a good book series, it could have been shorter to accomplish the same thing.