I feel like I knew the formula for this series before I had even read it: book one set up the story and introduced the futuristic community that strove to make a better human race, book two plots the escape of the few who dare to question the societal hierarchy, and I am anticipating book three will concern them overcoming their plight and freeing their entire society. Blah. I am a little bored of the dystopian genre at the moment, only because of the repetitiveness of the story line. This was cookie-cutter YA dystopian and therefore lacking any originality and held little interest for me. 
 This book is the second installment in the Matched trilogy and, in all honesty, felt a little pointless. Since Cassia and Ky's matching, in the first book, Ky has been sent to fight in the outer provinces to help battle the mysterious enemy troops. Weeks later Cassia also finds herself sent to the same camp only to find that Ky has made his escape only days before. Cassia follows suit and after pages and pages of literally nothing happening, they finally meet in the canyons bordering these outer provinces. This was pretty emotional and dramatic but way too angsty and with far too much focus on the romantic relationship for my liking. I wanted fear of the enemy and society to be dominating their thought-process and fueling their reactions. 
 Literally nothing happened here! This whole book was a back-and-forth plot of both Cassia and Ky making their individual escapes from society and being oh-so-close-but-oh-so-far from each other. Once they had convened the plot still felt stalled and there was no discernible tension or confrontation. I enjoyed this initially but then it began to feel very repetitive and it wasn't until the last few chapters that I felt much plot progression was made. 
 The side characters that emerged in this book were interesting and I initially wanted to learn more about their past and individual stories. Their existence proved to be surplus, however, and they added nothing to the plot and had zero impact in the outcome of the story. 
 There were so many implausible scenarios that occurred in this that are too numerous to recount here. The rebellious teenagers somehow, inexplicably escaped their myriad of plights with no side effects or consequences for their actions and this just felt so unrealistic. Without the tension, there was no climax to this story, and without a climax this felt entirely pointless! There were far too many coincidences and far too little happening to make this hold my interest for any length of time and this was pretty much a test of my endurance for me to even get through it! 
 The writing is beautifully poetic and deserves more than the two stars I have awarded it, but the plot barely scrapes a half-star rating, in my opinion.