Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Matched by Ally Condi

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

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 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.

My thoughts:
I bought this book at the Book Fair at my children's school.  I saw a lot of blogs at the time about the book and, since the dystopian genre has had such fun books lately I picked it up.  This is another one that I finished a few months ago and just never got posted.  The funny thing is I thought I had written it, but when I looked for it i found out I was wrong.  I got book two for Mother's Day but haven't read it yet.

Cassia's world at first seems like it might be a society going down the right path.  Instead of trying to cure love, as in Lauren Oliver's Delirium, the members of society are matched with a partner that they can fall in love with.  They are matched to jobs by skills, partners by characteristics, they are delivered just the right amount of food for health, they can exercise to a certain level and they can join in some predetermined leisure activities.  People are healthy, follow the rules and there are few problems.  Old people die at an age when they are not a burden and have had a full life.  All the works of art, music, poetry and writing have been whittled down to lists of just 100.  The 100 best, the rest have been destroyed.  In theory it sounds good, but even the idea of imagining life without choices feels suffocating. 

Cassia is so excited when she finds out her match is her best friend Xander.  It seems like the night was such a success, until she views her video about him and catches an image of Ky as well.  That puts the whole "what if" idea in her head.  Instead of imagining the life she and Xander will have, she starts to wonder what it would be life if her match was Ky instead.  Between Ky and her grandfather, she starts to question a lot of things about their society and her eyes are opened to some things that she just hasn't noticed before.  I can't wait to read book two to see how things go from where they were left in this one!

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780142419779
  • Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
  • Publication date: 9/20/2011
  • Pages: 400
  • Sales rank: 213
  • Age range: 14 - 17 Years

About  Ally Condie
Ally Condie is a former high school English teacher who lives with her husband and three sons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves reading, running, eating, and listening to her husband play guitar.

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