Monday 1 October 2012

Bookworm Series no.2

Two Book Reviews


Matched


Matched is a young adult dystopian novel written by Ally Condie, a former English teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah. It is a part of #1 new York Times bestselling series and Entertainment Weekly even said that it's the hottest young adult novel to hit the shelves after the Hunger Games trilogy. 
The novel is situated into a dystopian future society. Previous generations have destroyed everything with their wars, and with time the Society was formed. The Society is governed by Officials and they decide everything for you - where you will work, who you will marry, even when you will die. Upon turning 17, a huge banquet is held at which you are matched to the person you are supposed to marry. You get a small computer chip containing details about your Match, since it's basically a rule that you don't know the person you're matched to. On the surface, it seems that the Society works perfectly fine and everybody seems happy with their lives and choices. Cassia is one of those people, her future is promising and she has every reason to trust into the Society. She is matched to her best friend, Xander, which is a rare thing. But an error appears after her Match Banquet, and for a split second another boy's face appears on the screen. She knows that boy, too; his name is Ky and he goes to her school. And she finds herself torn between her feelings and loyalty to the Society.
I don't want to give away too much for those of you who didn't read the book. All in all, I did like the book, but... The ideas she has are great, but she doesn't seem to bring them across very well. At some points, more descriptions were necessary for a reader to truly be able to understand what is going on in the story, or in Cassias head. Another thing is that she doesn't make you sympathize with the characters. The portrayal of characters in the book is good, but not excellent, and you are interested in what will happen to them, but you don't identify with them or their situation because you don't know them all that well. It's a good novel, but I wouldn't compare it with the Hunger Games trilogy. I would give it 4 out of 5 stars. 



Crossed 


The sequel takes place outside the Society, since the Official have take Ky to Outer Provinces to his certain death. Cassia leaves her home in pursuit for Ky and finds out that he escaped the Provinces. With a friend, she tracks him down and they reunite. They hear the stories of Uprisings and Cassia wants to find it and join it, but Ky is reluctant and this creates tension between them. On the other hand, she finds out that Xander has already joined the Uprising and works for it within the Society.
The second book, in my honest opinion, was a bit slow, and since it's not taking place in the Society, it is not as interesting as the first book. What I did like is that it was written from both Cassia's and Ky's perspective, and you could see a difference between these two voices, although they were written by the same (female) author. I would give it 3.5 stars out of 5.