Ally Condie

I found this book pretty engrossing. (But maybe I'm just like that :P) I stayed up past midnight to finish it in one sitting.

While I felt like it was a good book, I also thought that it seemed an awful lot like other books I've read more or less recently. A lot of the ideas of this Society echo concepts found in Lois Lowry's books The Giver and Gathering Blue.

For example, just like in The Giver, people who apply to get a spouse are matched up with someone based on personality, skill, and other factors. The people have no choice. Yet the main character finds himself (or in Matched, herself) wanting to be able to choose.

Also, for the elderly, what other people think of as peaceful, natural processes turn out to really be the government's way of controlling who lives and who dies. When their time is up, the old are poisoned.

In Gathering Blue, those few artists who create things are taken away. They are forced to use their skills to create what the leaders want them to make. This is what I thought of when I read about Ky being the only person who knew how to write. He could make swirling cursive, but everyone else only knew how to tap letters on a touchscreen.

The love triangle of Cassia, Xander, and Ky reminded me a bit too much of Katniss, Gale, and Peeta in the Hunger Games. The whole best friend/other guy conflict. Whether to choose the one the government wants her to marry, or the one she currently has feelings for. However, I was relieved to find that Cassia's outlook on the love was very different from Katniss's. I can't really describe exactly how it was different... but it was refreshing, really, to see a different spin on the love triangle.

Having said all that, the content still somehow felt original. It seemed like the author did have her own story to tell. It only reminded me of those books because I'd read them recently and thought about them a lot. I was the one drawing similarities, not the author stealing ideas. Still, I'd recommend reading all these books far apart in time. They each have their own merits but they'll sound too similar if you read them one after another.

I don't know if this is a new style among authors or what. A lot of books seem to end leaving the reader with more questions than they had at the beginning. This one did for sure. It seemed that everyone had dozens of deep, dark secrets. But it also made sense- they were realizing that there were some things they simply could not tell each other.

So there you have it. A decent read. As tired as I am, I don't regret losing several hours of sleep over it.… (more)

I have heard some amazing things about this book!! After reading a review that was less than glowing, I had to move this up on my TBR list. I am a sucker for moving a book up if I come across a bad review. Although I can agree with some points that the reviewer made, to me the book was a good read. I loved that even though it was Dystopian, it wasn't so much like the other Dystopian books I have read, so I felt as thought I was reading this genre for the first time.
Ally Condie drags us into a world where everything is different. The world is overlooked "read: CONTROLLED" by the "Officals", and you really have no say in anything. You are told how to think, what to read, what to eat, who you love, where you will work and even when you will die. The world is so controlled that you aren't even allowed to learn to write by hand, everything is done on a "Scribe" which I am assuming is sort of like an Ipad/tablet pc.
Matched was a tough read for me, don't get me wrong; I loved the book, I just had a little trouble following the story at times. There were a lot things about the Province that ticked me off. I mean really, I would never want to live in a world where everything was pretty much decided for me. I want to choose who I love, not be Matched with someone because our genes have the potential to make the best offspring. And really, who wants to be told how many kids they can have? Or even where they are going to live and work?
As with any YA book, you know there has to be a love triangle. And the one between Cassia ( the main character), Xander, and Ky is a strange one. Cassia and Xander have been friends for most of their lives, and by some odd chance they are Matched, by the Society. Now, I automatically thought something was fishy about that whole thing, how is it that the person you are most compatible with in the entire "world" just happens to already be your best friend? It didn't sit right with me at all.
Then after Cassia arrives home from her Match ceremony ( where she was Matched with Xander), and gets around to putting her information chip about Xander in the "port" she see's Xander's face for a few seconds then all of a sudden she see's Ky's face.
Now Ky wasn't mentioned until this happened, and then all of a sudden, he is EVERYWHERE! The oOfficials make contact with Cassia to tell her that seeing Ky's face on her Match screen was a mistake and to just think of the life she will lead with Xander... But of course, Cassia constantly thinks about Ky. Thus begins the love triangle. Cassia is somehow around Ky more than her Match Xander; which again was raising flags in my mind; and she slowly begins to fall in love with Ky. Ky has a story to tell, but has never told anyone, he is a rebel in a way; not a noticeable way though; and he tells his story to Cassia, while teaching her to write by hand.
Things happen and mistakes are made, Ky is sent off to a new "work" position and Cassia learns that her family is being relocated to another Province. After Cassia learns of an experiment conducted by the Officials, she vows to find Ky no matter what.... Which will lead us into the second book in the series which is set to come out in November....… (more)

Ellery thought she would be spending her twentieth wedding anniversary at a lush resort in Big Sur with her husband until he told he he wanted a divorce. Since the trip was already paid for, he encouraged her to go by herself. At first reluctant to leave her three children, she finally agreed. To rub salt in her wounds, there is a wedding to take place at the resort. That is, until the groom calls it off and Ellery finds his dead body in the pool. As a storm rages, the resort is cut off from the rest of the world. There is no electricity, no cell service, and the road is blocked. Soon there is another death and it seems many of the guests, including Ellery, may be harboring secrets. She teams up with two other guests to try to solve the murders.

This book started out with a lot of possibilities, and the setting seemed perfect for a thriller, but the story seemed to get bogged down as went on. It just didn’t engage me and, to me, there seemed to be some disconnect in some of the plot lines. There are other readers who I’m sure will really like this story but it fell a bit flat for me. Kudos for the beautiful setting.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #grandcentralpublishing for the DRC.… (more)