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.

Bookworm Series no. 1

End-of-Summer Book Haul

Recently I went to my favorite bookstore and picked up several great books. 

First book I picked is Matched by Ally Condie. 

"On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia meets her match. Society dictates he is her perfect  partner for life. Except he's not. In Cassia's society, Officials decide who people love. How many children they have. Where they work. When they die. But, as Cassia finds herself falling in love with another boy, she is determined to make some choices of her own. And that's when her whole world begins to unravel..."

I also picked its sequel, Crossed. 

I loved The Time Traveler's Wife, so I decided to buy another book by Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry.

The story starts with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who decides to leave her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetary to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother never steps into it. But, the curious thing is that the twins have never even knew their ant existed. Hoping to start their own, separate lives in London, the sisters start unraveling the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite willing to leave her flat even after death. It is a ghost story about love, loss and identity.

And last, but not least, I bought Delirium by Lauren Oliver and I am really looking forward to reading it as I heard awesome reviews.

Again, a dystopian society where people believe love is a disease and needs to be cured. As the back cover of the book brilliantly puts it: "There was a time when love was the most important thing in the world. People would go to the end of the earth to find it. They would tell lies for it. Even kill for it. Then, at last, they found the cure". And the cure is an operation that leaves you incapable of feeling any kind of love. And the protagonist is looking forward to being cured, and thus safe from this terrible disease... until she finds herself falling in love.

And I also borrowed several books from the library:
Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick and its sequel Crescendo. 

Hush, Hush brings the story of a high school girl, Nora Grey, who never really thought much about dating until Patch came along. He's dark, dangerous and mysterious and Nora's strongly drawn to him against her better judgement. But after a series of terrifying encounters, she is not sure if she can trust him. He seems to be everywhere, and to know everything about her and her friends. When she finally tries to seek answers, she finds herself right in the middle of a centuries-old battle between the immortal and the fallen ... and she has to take sides.

And another dystopian themed novel, Unwind by Neal Shusterman. This sounds like a really good, though a bit disturbing and thought-provoking read. In a society in which unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways decide to fight the system that would "unwind" them. They have to survive until their eighteenth birthday, when they can no longer be harmed.











Have you read any of these books? How did you like them? Share in the comments below :)

xoxo,

Iskra