Matched by Ally Condie
Cassia is an ordinary girl living an everyday life in the Society, a "perfect" community run through predetermination. Everything is determined by Society Officials based on statistics and probability. Efficiency and equality are the goals, and choice has been taken out of almost every equation. It is the path humanity has taken for the sake of safety, as the border wars outside Society's limits clearly show, and Cassia has no qualms with the choices made for her. Until, that is, the night of her Match Banquet...
When Cassia catches a glitch in her Match microchip and sees the face of not one but two possible romantic matches, she knows something must be wrong. Suddenly everything is up in the air, and the questions start to grow. As her perfect image of the Society starts to fracture, Cassia discovers the beauty and strength in forbidden knowledge and the ability to choose, and her small internal struggle to remain balanced becomes an overwhelming external need to live her own life.
When you mix ideas and images from a bunch of classic dystopian and "perfect society" novels like Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury), The Giver (Lowry), and 1984 (Orwell)--and then throw in some contemporary favorites like Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series--it's hard not to have a hit. Throw in a love triangle to rival Katniss, Peeta, and Gale from The Hunger Games and you've got a bestseller on your hands (see the NYTimes list). It's a solid and enjoyable page-turner, and as only the first in a trilogy, it should go far by publishing standards. Definitely recommended for fans of today's futuristic, dystopian sub-genre, especially with the promise of more action and star-crossed romance to come!
The sequel, Crossed, is set to be published on November 1, 2011.
-Jenny
Age 12+
Copyright November 2010
ISBN: 9780525423645
Available as an eBook
Image from www.penguingroup.com
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