Book 36 (a love triangle): Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie

Publisher: Dutton Books
Page Count: 369
Fiction Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Dystopian, YA, Romance
Dates Read: July 9-14, 2015

Summary
Society chooses everything for you.  Your job, your daily activities, even who you will marry.  Chronic dating is a thing for the savages.  Cassia could not be more excited when her magical year finally comes and she can take part in the matching ceremony; when she will find out who she will marry.  Cassia could not be more excited to find out that she was matched with her best friend, Xander, but then Ky's face also appears when it shouldn't.

Review
Meh.  I was pretty angry when I finished this book.  It wasn't this book specifically that upset me, it is the whole YA, dystopian, romance genre.  I'm getting tired of reading the same recipe in these books.  Girl meets boy.  Girl falls for boy.  Girl meets another boy, and falls for him too.  Then the government does some trickery and now all three of them are running from The Man.  It's not that these follow the same story arch, it's that these authors are stealing from greater authors with outstanding stories, and then bastardize the stories to make something "new".  REALLY?  Try actually making something unique and different for a change.

This book was pure crap.  It was basically a dollar store knock-off version of The Giver by Beverly Lewis.  Condie could not imagine anything original, and then pieced together successful classics with a flimsy love story, and an even flimsier love triangle.  It was just ridiculous.  Cassia is such a flat and shallow character.  She is like a robot; she does not feel love until the government gives her a picture of a young man and tells her to love him.  Xander and Ky's character development is just as awful.  We don't know anything about either of these except that they have as many feelings as Cassia does.

The chances of me reading the next two is very slim, but I might just because I bought all three books at the same time.

Ratings (based on a 10 point scale)
Quality of Writing - 6
Pace - 3
Plot Development - 3
Characters - 2
Enjoyability - 4
Insightfulness - 3
Ease of Reading - 7
Photos/Illustrations - N/A
Overall Rating - 2 out of 5 stars

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