Matched by Ally Condie

Matched 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."- summary from Amazon

OK, so I've read mixed reviews on this one and I'm in the middle-ish. The book wasn't a total disappointment, but it also wasn't an amazing home run or anything. I think Condie did a wonderful job setting up the world and really building it up with little things and big things. I really enjoyed the characters too and I do also get why the story is written the way it is- Cassia knows very little and is taught not to show much emotion and all that. It really makes those scenes where she does show it all that more powerful.

At the same time, I was a bit bored in the middle of the story and it seemed like maybe something exciting happened every 50 pages, but it wasn't much fun having to plough through those 50 pages to get to it. The beginning hooked me because of the novelty of it all and I wanted to know more about the Society and its rules (which, by the way, PO'd me a lot of the time, as I'm sure it's supposed to). The ending (like the last 50 pages) were very climactic and sets up an interesting situation for the next book. It's just that darn middle that's the bulk of the book. I liked some things about it, like learning more about Ky's past, but there seemed to be a lot of extraneous scenes there.

Overall, the book does have a pretty cover (though the hardcover is not sparkly like the ARC, it seems, which is a shame) and has a decent plot that could've been executed a bit better. The characters were very cool to read about, but I think for the most part, it's a library book. And if you want the pretty cover, wait for the paperback.

FTC: Received ARC at BEA (signed!). Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.