What happens when you're so desperately in love with someone that you'd walk through a canyon to find them—but the journey itself feels like wading through honey?
I was three hours into this one, curled up on my couch with Diego purring on my chest and Frida giving me her signature "you're wasting your life" stare, when I realized something uncomfortable. I wanted to love this book so badly. Cassia and Ky's story in Matched had me clutching my phone like a lifeline, but Crossed? It's like watching two people you adore walk in slow motion toward each other for ten hours straight.
The Canyon Between Wanting and Getting
Here's the thing—the premise is gorgeous. Cassia breaking free from Society, trekking into the Outer Provinces to find Ky, the wild frontier promising rebellion and reunion? That's the stuff my romantic heart lives for. Ally Condie writes longing like she's lived it. The ache is real. The poetry woven through the narrative (Ky's obsession with writing, with words as rebellion) genuinely moved me. There's a scene where they finally reunite and I did get misty—but it took SO long to get there.
The dual POV structure should have been electric. Cassia and Ky, alternating chapters, their thoughts circling each other like moths around the same flame. Instead, it often felt like reading the same internal monologue twice. Both characters spend chapters upon chapters reflecting, wondering, hoping. Beautiful? Sometimes. Repetitive? Often. I found myself designing a logo during hour five because my brain needed something to do while waiting for the plot to remember it existed. Project Hail Mary had the opposite problem—so much happening that my brain couldn't keep up, which honestly I prefer to this glacial pace.
Kate Simses: A Voice That Almost Fits
Kate Simses has this breathless, innocent quality that worked beautifully for Cassia in the first book—that wide-eyed girl discovering the cracks in her perfect world. But Crossed asks Cassia to be braver, harder, more desperate. And Simses keeps that same young, uncertain tone throughout. It's like watching someone play a teenager when the character has aged into something fiercer.
Jack Riccobono handles Ky's chapters, and honestly? The contrast helps. His voice has more weight, more weariness. When they switch narrators, you feel the shift in perspective. But Simses's delivery—and I say this with love—sometimes made my eyelids heavy. Not because she's bad, but because the breathiness combined with the slow pacing created this almost hypnotic effect. I caught myself zoning out during canyon descriptions more than once.
The Xander of It All
Can we talk about the love triangle? Because I have feelings. Xander, sweet golden-boy Xander, keeps inserting himself into this story through letters and surprises, and honestly? It frustrated me more than it intrigued me. I'm Team Ky until I die, but even if I weren't, the way this triangle plays out feels manufactured. Like the story needed tension so it kept dangling Xander in front of us without actually letting anyone make real choices.
Abuela would have had opinions about this. She'd have been yelling at Cassia to "just pick one, mija" while simultaneously rooting for the forbidden love. She loved a good telenovela triangle, but she also knew when one was being dragged out for drama's sake. This one? Dragged.
Who Should Cross This Canyon (And Who Should Turn Back)
If you loved Matched and you need to know what happens—yes, listen to this. The worldbuilding expands in interesting ways, the Rising rebellion adds stakes, and there are genuinely tender moments between Cassia and Ky that made my heart squeeze. If you're patient, if you're okay with a middle book that's more journey than destination, you'll find things to love here.
But if slow pacing makes you antsy? If you need action beats to stay engaged? Skip this or bump it up to 1.25x speed. I know, I know—I'm usually a 1.0x purist. But this one tested even my commitment to savoring.
Fond, But Not Wrecked
I didn't ugly-cry. Not once. And for a romance about two people risking everything to be together, that feels like a missed opportunity. The emotion is there in the writing, but it's buried under so much wandering—literal and metaphorical—that it never quite breaks through. I finished feeling... fond. Wistful. But not wrecked. Beneath These Shadows left me similarly underwhelmed—beautiful writing, but missing that emotional gut-punch I crave.
Will I listen to Reached? Probably. I've come this far. But I'm hoping the finale delivers the emotional payoff this middle chapter only promised.
