It's like 1984 meets My Side of the Mountain. I took my time reading this book and when I sat back and thought about it, I realized that it was because the writing was just so beautiful. It felt like I was reading poetry. Ally was so good at unfolding the story. Every time I learned something new about the characters or the world, I just ended up with more questions. The biggest question was: "Is everything really what it seems? What's REALLY going on?" One of my favorite things was how much the title had to do with the story. The word "Crossed" weaved itself beautifully in and out of every aspect of the book and I found myself analyzing it and thinking many deep thoughts. It was so much more deep and thought provoking than I thought it would be. The story leaves you hanging and eager to read the next one, but not in a huge cliff-hanger way. I'm going to go think about this story some more....Oh, and the love triangle was one of the best and truly honest ones that I've read.This book is also reviewed on my blog Books: A true story

I really wanted to like this book. But I found the task impossible. While I loved Matched, I think Condie did not keep up the original ideas, tight plot, and romantic suspense that worked in the first book. She tries using two narrators, but does not distinguish their voices. Other than the heading on the top of each chapter to delineate who was talking, it was almost impossible to figure out who was the narrator. The plot was completely lackluster. Nothing really happens. Most of the events in this book could have been condensed into less than 100 pages, but instead Condie drags them out with sappy scenes of her two lovebirds. I like a little love story with my dystopian fiction, but this was overboard. She also seems to be under the impression that readers think there might be a chance Cassia will end up with Xander. We all know she's going to end up with Ky. So why drag out the supposed love triangle? It just made me feel that Condie doesn't respect the intelligence of her readers.I enjoyed Condie's beautiful writing in the first book, but I think she might have let the positive reviews of Matched go to her head. Her use of forbidden poetry was not as interesting in Crossed, and the poetry she tries to use in her own prose was too much. It got to the point where I was skimming because I just didn't care anymore, and I could tell Condie wasn't going anywhere special. I was profoundly disappointed. I gave this two stars instead of one because I think teens might get through this book without complaint, and because it was an easy read. I'm always more angry if I've put a lot of time into reading a book, only to be disappointed. Crossed only required a few hours.

Okay....I admit. I did not finish this book. I told myself I would because I feel like I steal the chance to become more exciting to the end but it was so boring and slow. And there are just so many other books I am way more excited to read.So I did not like this book. This is just my opinion and I did really like the first one so it is kind of a pity that the second didn't turn out great.