September 18, 2011
7:33PM
Here's our latest recommended book: Matched by Ally Condie
In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one… until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow — between perfection and passion.
Courtesy of: http://www.matched-book.com
To those who have read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, this book might have a familiar ring to it. It's set on utopian society but behind its mask of perfection, optimization and satisfaction, the government has absolute control over the community and its citizens. However, a brewing rebellion will about to change that. Matched promises action, mystery and romance with its main protagonists try to change the society.
The first installment in the Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie is quite lacking in action and excitement as compared to The Hunger Games. It's not as enthralling and exciting as Hunger Games or Catching Fire that you wouldn't think of putting down the book, but it is quite intriguing that you want to read and understand more what kind of society the characters live in: so much like our world, but somehow very different. It gives us an alternative world where food are rationed and customized to suit each citizen's health requirement, where song and book lists are cut to a 100 in number and where strangers are matched "to provide the healthiest possible future citizens".
Cassia Reyes might not be the most interesting character, but you will love the mystery behind Ky's identity and the almost perfect Xander. The other characters including Cassia's parents and grandfather also add color to the storyline as we see different personalities and how they live and cope with the rules of The Society and how, in their own ways, exercise their own rights by doing little rebellions to The Society.
Over-all, the central story is interesting, the characters are intriguing, though the pacing might be a little slow as many parts are dedicated to creating a picture of the kind of society they live in. Matched by Ally Condie is still a must-read, especially as the next installment promises more action, more drama, more twists and more answers that beget more questions. These will all be in the next book, Crossed out this November 2011.
