The Matched Series by Ally Condie
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. (excerpt from Matched)
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. (excerpt from Matched)
I read this series earlier this year and enjoyed them. In Cassia's world, everyone has a job. The Society makes sure that everyone's days are planned out. In Cassia's case, she's in school 5 or 6 days a week (hard to know for sure), they have "Free Rec" hours, and approved "leisure" activities. The Society matches kids at the age of 17 and have a "courting" ritual so that the matches can eventually get to know each other. There is no fluff in The Society - everyone has a purpose, They know everything, and your only choice is to be Matched or to remain Single. That's pretty much it. Also? No one lives past the age of 80 because The Society claimed that the quality of life deteriorates past 80. Everyone's meals are prepared and delivered to their home or school. No one has money, they aren't allowed trinkets, nothing. The Society also deemed that their ancestors (us) lead a cluttered life with too many choices, so they picked out the Hundred - the hundred best of everything. Anything else was destroyed. They don't save anything, they don't truly treasure where they came from. Cassia's world is just right until she watches the card on her Match, and someone else's face shows up instead. She starts to question what The Society Officials tell her and starts thinking for herself and falls in love. This is another dystopian society that's camouflaged as a utopia until you start getting in there and realizing how much control The Society has over its citizens. It was interesting to me to see how this "utopia" was set up - and how the story line played out.
I only read the first two and I have to say I'm not moved to continue. I wasn't actually moved to read past the first but caved when i saw it at the library. I don't know. I guess after Hunger Games and Divergent it just didn't impress me.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it's not as good as Hunger Games and Divergent. To me it felt like it moved at a slower pace. But I do enjoy seeing different ideas of "utopia" or the "dystopian" societies. I get lost trying to figure out how we would have gotten to that point, what caused it.
DeleteSo thanks to you, I devoured these books. I liked the first one, thought the second one was okay, then by the third one was getting annoyed. I'm trying to decide if that's just me or if others feel that way. So my question to you is this--especially in the third book, did you feel that there were major plot points that could have been explored and fleshed out, but weren't because it wasn't 'Cassia stays with Ky not Xander' related? I picked up on who Lia was by about the second time she interacted with Xander, and didn't need the 'big reveal' at the end of the book as to her identity. Yet her story, and the story of how she got away against the Society, would have been worth exploring, and wasn't. Xander's whiny-boy "I love Cassia I want her She wants Ky" got old fast, and his character had so much potential to be something more. Hunter's story and motivation could have been fleshed out, instead he did a bad thing, was caught, is gone. The reasoning behind the Rising and the Society being the same thing, and the motivations behind both are never really fleshed out, they're just noted and then the story moved on because you had to get back to Cassia/Ky angst. Was this just my take?
ReplyDeleteAll in all, it was enjoyable, but I was irritated by the end of book three....
I find that, especially with the YA novels, that the love triangles are just plain annoying. I never read Twilight and that triangle annoyed the hell outta me be default. In Hunger Games, Katniss' back and forth crap made me scream, and at one point actually wanted the author to kill off one or both guys just to end it. In Divergent, it wasn't really a triangle, but the back and forth with just Four - break up, together, break up, together. Holy crap, make a decision!
DeleteSo to answer your question, yes I do agree with you. At some point I'm annoyed by any love triangle, but I feel that the author did truly write the books around Cassia, Ky, and Xander and didn't go anywhere they weren't. I also figured out who Lia was quickly and felt her big reveal was a bit anticlimactic. I thought all the characters could have been explored a little better . . . as well as other bits, like the "action" - it seemed a bit . . . lazy. As were the "reasons" given by the author gave behind everything.
Overall I enjoyed the series. I like trying to visualize the character's world and how that world could have come into existence, how it came to be and why and by whom. While the characters and/or the storyline may annoy me from time to time I try to put it aside. Some days it was easier than others. lol