Reading at Dawn - Book Review Blog

Another book read for a book reading club online. It's one of the few books I have in hardback since I am fonder of paperback when it comes to books. However, I had to buy this book twice because my first copy had a major printing error. Chapters were missing and instead other chapters were repeated. It was weird but the second copy meant I could actually read it.

About the book from Goodreads:

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.


The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.



This book had a lot of potential for it was a book I'd heard about for months and so wanted to read. However, the book didn't quite reach that for me. Especially in the beginning. The end finally brought me on board but it took till the last 6 chapters or so for me to really be involved in the main character's story.

Love triangle: Okay. This is part of what didn't do it for me and that's because I'm very picky about love triangles. This has the same type that I've read in other books, including a book I haven't reviewed here to avoid going on a love triangle rant. It's a girl who loves two boys. One boy is the dedicated friend who takes risks for her and/or others despite what that could do to him. The other boy is more of a mystery. He is darker and has a surprising connection to the main character that she can't shake off. Always the nice guy loses or it seems he is losing if the triangle isn't resolved in the first book. But the nice guy losing bugs me to no end. Sure, I liked Ky, and he becomes a well developed character by the end, but it's the same old thing. And the friend relationship comes off more as a given which makes it less developed. Xander shows up at random but he isn't involved much in the actual story.

The world: I give the author great credit for the world she has created. As someone who hasn't even built the world for her epic fantasy series that she has had for almost 10 years, I can't even imagine the work Condie put in creating the Society. The details were well done and I enjoyed discovering when we were given the chance to see what the main character notices since it's done in first person narrative. I look forward to seeing the rest of the world outside the one province as the sequel promises to show. There is more going on in the world than the main character first realized and it will be interesting to learn even more in the future.

Overall: The beginning was a little rough and unfortunately it made the book a little too easy for me to put down most of the time. By the end, I started to get into the story but it took a bit too long for that to happen. I'm hoping the sequel is even better but I'm going to wait for the paperback version.