Matched (Matched # 1) - Ally Condie
Book Synopsis: In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die. Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion. Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.
Fingers crossed that this book is better than Atlantia! Okay, okay, it definitely was.
The difference is really night and day. Usually, I don't read books about utopias and the perfect societies of the future, but I made an exception for this series because it's been haunting me on Instagram. It was a bit confusing, but it left on a huge cliffhanger, which may or may not have suckered me into borrowing the next two books in the trilogy.
Xander is too good for Cassia, she doesn't deserve to have him as her Match. Ky is mysterious, and Cassia obviously falls for him. I just didn't like the fact that Cassia is so clingy and needy. Maybe Society isn't perfect - they are controlling basically every aspect of each citizen. It's really a strange concept to really grasp.
I don't agree with: Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic. Seriously? Way to hype up a trilogy that I can already tell is not going to end well.
Update: I can't bring myself to finish this trilogy. Ally Condie's writing style isn't my cup of tea. Fortunately, I was able to return the two books to the library.
Rating: ★★★☆☆ (Really it's 2.5 stars, but I'll give it a 3 just because.)