Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Book Recommendation: Matched!

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.


I loved the dystopian society that Cassia lives in. While the idea of pre-arranged matching isn’t all that new, what really made it stand out were the details and the overall emotions involved- the little nuances that gave the story an added depth and really brought it to life. She has a fascination and hunger for life in a way it is difficult to describe but it automatically drew me to her character and was probably a large part of the reason I was almost immediately emotionally invested in her journey.
I switched back and forth between paperback and audio book for this one since I was multitasking for most of the day but too curious to find out what was happening next to wait. The audio book was actually done quite well and I enjoyed the voice actors though I do always prefer to stick with the written, in this case I really didn’t mind switching back and forth. The voice actor matched the voice I was imagining in my mind well enough that it didn’t cause it to feel interrupted in any way.

In the end I loved Cassia and getting to see how she thinks. I also really enjoyed the character development of the side characters and the way that Ally Condie managed to capture the emotions so well. For once, it was a love triangle that I didn’t find dull or overdone because both Ky and Xander were well developed enough and solid in their foundation. So the idea of her being faced with a choice was simply inevitable instead of contrived.

I simply loved this novel. Everything about it was well done from the world creation to the emotional depth of the entire situation as Cassia realizes that what she had always faced as the one thing she knew was right, might be the one thing that is most wrong about her life.


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