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Review: Matched
tháng 10 11, 2011
dystopian, review, romance, YA
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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."
-Goodreads
Stats:
- Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
- Date of release: Nov. 30, 2010
- Page count: 366
- Would appeal to: The Giver fans, The Hunger Games trilogy fans, Divergent fans
"If our Society changes and things are different, who am I to tell the girl who would have enjoyed the safe protected life that now she has to have choice and danger because of me?"
"I'll tell her and everyone else that I know: they are giving us pieces of a real life instead of the whole thing. And I'll tell her that I don't want my life to be samples and scraps. A taste of everything but a meal of nothing. They have perfected the art of giving us just enough freedom; just enough that when we are ready to snap, a little bone is offered and we roll over, belly up, comfortable and placated like a dog I saw once when we visited my grandparents in the Farmlands."
"Did the poet know how lucky he was, to have such beautiful words and a place to put them and keep them?"
"I think of how perhaps the best way to fly would be with hands full of earth so you always remember where you came from, how hard walking could sometimes be."
I have experienced love the second time around.
I'm not a repeat reader by any means. I reread this book before my first classroom book club discussion (it went so well!) and I finished in two days.
Let me count the ways that this book and I were meant to be reunited:
1. Ally Condie's writing style fits Cassia to a T; an innocent, all-trusting citizen who follows the rules. It's actually refreshing to read a YA book without cussing.
2. The common storyline--girl chooses between two boys--was somehow unique and exciting in its own right.
3. Poetry was valued by the protagonist and morphed into a theme of resistance, especially when Cassia recalled Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night."
4. The physical act of writing is not taught for these characters because the Society knows the type of power it might give its citizens, but Cassia understands the freedom it makes her feel.
5. Running a society on statistics and probability should work out in theory, but logic alone cannot rule a race of humans.
In this new Society, people die at age 80 after their Final Banquet; teens are officially Matched at age 17, normally with a person they've met; messages are delivered via computer port; and meals are dropped off daily with the appropriate amount of nutrients and portions for each individual. Cancer does not exist. But neither does the freedom of choice.
The idea of a Matched banquet is absolutely magical-- fancy foods, gorgeous dresses, teens eagerly anticipating promising outcomes. Sort of like right before prom, only this determination affects the rest of your life. It's kind of like online dating, since the first interaction you get is just a realtime image, then you have conversations over a port, and eventually supervised outings. Okay, I doubt e-Harmony users have chaperoned dates, unless you count a group date for safety purposes.
Unlike our reality, every moment of these people's time is divided: recreation time, work time, school time. Their choices for rec. time include going to a music hall to hear the 100 songs, playing games at the youth center, or watching a viewing. No one complains. Everyone follows the rules for fear of being reclassified as an Aberation or an Anomaly.
I love the relationship between Cassia's parents; one breaks rules to protect the family, but the other keeps rules for the same reason. Bram, Cassia's younger brother, is also a little brother I wouldn't mind claiming. He's late to school nearly every day. He likes to jump in rain puddles. He runs around with messy hair. Everyone has to worry about him. But he's strong when he needs to be, just like Grandfather.
The scene that breaks my heart is when Cassia's dad has to incinerate all the books (reminds me of Fahrenheit 451). She watches as the Officials break the books down their spines and suck up pieces of pages. I shudder at the thought that a group of people would destroy the writings of past peoples.
The concept of every citizen carrying around a pill container intrigued me from the start. If you look at the cover of the first and second books, they tie in with the pills!
Condie might be onto something. In the story, the old world failed because of its dependence on technology and then the Warming happened. That's just about all we find out.
One thing that makes everyone feel special is that they can own one artifact from the past. These things are always special and curious to their owners. It's almost like Ariel discovering the fork--I mean, dinglehopper with Scuttle (I'm heavy on The Little Mermaid references this week). Cassia learns to treasure someone else's artifact even more than her own.
I found myself rooting for one guy over the other, I admit, but I also felt sympatheic toward the other one. I think the big picture was less about the romance and more about right vs. wrong.
I don't want to say much more because I'll give away all the Society's secrets. I will say that I absolutely cannot wait for Crossed to come out. Right now, I'm waiting on a Crossed tour ARC to be mailed to me. The second book is told in alternating points of view between Cassia and Ky. Yay! I'm always a sucker for male POVs.
If you want to be swept away by a dystopian, this is your book (imagine me jumping up and down and waving it in your face, pretty much like I did with my sophomores)!
Final verdict:
Matched grasps each reader by the heart and never lets go; the right combination of plot twists, romance, and defiance.
Read it close to November 1st because you will be itching to grab the sequel!
P.S. There are quite a few reviews that were impacted because the story holds numerous similarities to The Giver. To that I say: all ideas in literature are borrowed from some place or another.
Review: Saving June
"'If she’d waited less than two weeks, she’d be June who died in June. But I guess my sister didn’t consider that.’Harper Scott’s older sister has always been the perfect one so when June takes her own life a week before her high school graduation, sixteen-year-old Harper is devastated. Everyone’s sorry, but no one can explain why.
When her divorcing parents decide to split her sister’s ashes into his-and-her urns, Harper takes matters into her own hands. She’ll steal the ashes and drive cross-country with her best friend, Laney, to the one place June always dreamed of going California.
Enter Jake Tolan. He’s a boy with a bad attitude, a classic-rock obsession and nothing in common with Harper’s sister. But Jake had a connection with June, and when he insists on joining them, Harper’s just desperate enough to let him. With his alternately charming and infuriating demeanour and his belief that music can see you through anything, he might be exactly what she needs.
Except June wasn’t the only one hiding something. Jake’s keeping a secret that has the power to turn Harper’s life upside down again."
-Good Reads
Stats:
- Publisher: Harlequin Teen
- Release date: Nov. 29, 2011
- Page count: 336
- Would appeal to: Fans of A Map of the Known World, Sarah Ockler fans
"All I can do is look at him. Up close, I get a better view; there's no denying the fact he is really, really goodlooking, in this rakish, edgy, badass, I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-screw-you-I-don't-need-a-mirror kind of way."
"'God, you're like a douche-baggy hipster music snob with the tastes of a forty-year-old white guy.'"
"Gwen has that affected, high-pitched baby voice that some girls at my high school like to adopt, thinking it's cutesy and endearing when it of course has the opposite effect. It makes me want to staby my eardrums."
"But maybe that's better. You can only cover a bullet hole with a Band-Aid for so long. Maybe I need to bleed out. Maybe I need to stop with the lame metaphors."
"'By then everyone will have the fiftieth edition of iPods--or maybe they'll just have music downloaded directly into their brains...I'll be the old lady in the corner going, 'Back when I was a kid, we had mix tapes, and floppy disks, and gas didn't cost twenty bucks a gallon, and oh, yeah, MTV actually played music videos...' And they'll probably say, 'Oh, Mom, you and your stories, we're jetting to the oxygen bar...' and take off in their flying cars.'"
Another one of those books where the narrator, Harper, has an awesome sense of humor-- sarcastic and witty despite the awful tragedy she's going through. She's the one who found her sister dead in the garage, and the reader doesn't see the actual flashback until the middle of the book. Harrington does a great job or portraying teens with realistic dialogue.
First of all, Jake Tolan is an incredibly awesome male lead. He's confusing. He's obsessed with music. He was friends with June, but Harper has a suspicion they were more than that. Of course, Harper can't help but fall for him. Her brain is constantly arguing with itself over why he's not swoon-worthy. The last thing she needs is to crush on the guy who infuriates her. So the author has taken the classic "they-hate-each-other" approach, but it definitely works. After several scenes of Jake shirtless, I really wanted to be in Harper's place. Besides his piercing green eyes, his always-messy hair was my favorite feature.
I went into the reading expecting to bawl my eyes out, and though I did get a little emotional, that never happened. For some reason I was able to put down this book in several places when all I really wanted to want was to read it from start to finish. There was a long stretch in the middle that lagged in pace.
There is the right amount of disbelief, sadness, and action in the story. Harper does a great job of trying to move on with her life. Laney, her best friend (I absolutely wanted her as my own beautiful best friend who is dramatic, loves rap, and can take charge when the situation calls for it!) tries to pick up all the pieces and succeeds in making a mess of her own life. So Harper ends up being just as big a rock to Laney as Laney is to her. I wish Laney and Seth had gotten more serious before the story ended.
My favorite two stops on the road trip were Fridge Henge and Carmen's apartment. The rally the teens go to was well described, and there's even an underground music club scene going on. A little bit of everything for everyone. I don't think I would have had the guts to run away from home and not call for as long as Harper did. When Harper and Laney get back, their punishment is pretty minimal. I would want to honor my dead sister's memory, but not at the expense of leaving my crushed divorced mother. Maybe that's why I admire her bravery and determination. It also helps that she has feelings of guilt on the roadtrip.
There were a few times too many (three, I think) that Harper mentioned something about being a jigsaw puzzle piece fitting into place (or missing).
The ending was wonderful, but I felt myself wishing the middle had made me feel just as satisfied as I felt at the end.
The writing is lovely. I laughed out loud during some descriptions of Gwen, Jake's ex. Even though the subject matter was serious, there were lots of fun moments and some strong sexual tension.
Final verdict:
A contemporary read about surviving loss, friendship, and finding love in unusual places. Harrington paints a realistic picture for the reader through imagery and highlights the healing power of music.
*Thank you to Harlequin Teen for providing me with an e-copy of the book for an advanced review.
In the Hammock Giveaway
Okay, so I've recently added a ton of giveaway buttons on my sidebar. I've decided to blog about one really great giveaway by In the Hammock Book Reviews. The winner wins SIX incredible books:
"Queen of the Dead" by Stacey Kade
"After Obsession" by Carrie Jones and Steven E. Wedel
"Between" by Jessica Warman
"Dracula in Love" by Karen Essex
"The Near Witch" by Victoria Schwab
"Fallen Grace" by Mary Hooper
Between and The Near Witch are on my TBR list, so I'm very excited. The others look just as good.
Contest ends Nov. 1, so head on over to In the Hammock to enter!
Feature and Follow Friday and Book Blogger Hop (#6)
tháng 10 07, 2011
Book Blogger Hop, Follow Me Friday
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Hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee's View, Feature and Follow Friday allows book bloggers to answer a question, leave comments, gain followers, and explore the realm of book bloggers.
Q. If you could pick one character in a book, movie or television show to swap places with, who would it be?
All the characters in the books I've read lately have crazy trials that test their faith after a family member dies. So I guess I would have to say Ariel from The Little Mermaid. She can sing underwater without choking to death AND she gets a happily ever after with Prince Eric. So what if she has to defeat an evil octupus and her voice is stolen for a while? Everything happens for a reason, right?
“It’s time to spread some love beyond the borders of the Book Blogger Hop! This week, we aren’t answering a question. We are spotlighting our fellow bloggers. Find your favorite(s) author interview(s), guest post(s), book review(s), or bookish article(s) that ANOTHER BOOK BLOGGER featured on their site recently and tell us why you love it/them! As an additional challenge, find your favorite one of EACH of the categories above and spotlight all 4 (interview, guest post, review, article).”
1) My favorite author interview is the one on I am a Reader, Not a Writer with Michael Robb Mathias. He's hilarious:
"Q: If you were stranded on a desert island what 3 things would you want with you?
A: I would want a harem, a solar powered fishing boat, and that crazy, spike-haired chef from the food channel. I bet he could make some great meals out of the seafood I catch in my fishing boat!"
And the book he'd most want signed is the Bible.
2) Guest post...didn't find one I particulary enjoyed that's recent...guess I failed the challenge:(
3) Kristan from Lost Amongst the Shelves always gives honest, thorough reviews that show her personality and eye for detail, whether it be in the structure of the prose or things about a character. Her review on Stephanie Perkins' Lola and the Boy Next Door makes me want to run right out and buy it.
4) Raindrop Reflections just posted Covers That Make People Judge. Very true words in here, people. A cover is our very first opinion of the book. If it's crap, well, I feel bad for the author because he or she doesn't always have a choice. Luckily we're all individuals and have our own thoughts on what we like to see on a cover. One man's trash is another man's treasure and all that.
I love you all and your posting brilliance. These are all great blogs, so check them out!
Check out our 100 Followers Giveaway for a chance to win a signed copy of Sonia Gensler's paranormal romance The Revenant and Alex Sokoloff's suspenseful ebook The Space Between.
Waiting on Wednesday (#7): A Breath of Eyre
Jill at Breaking the Spine hosts this weekly meme to let other bloggers know what exciting new books are coming out.
Totally saw this pick on Liza's site- Reading with ABC- and stole it. She has impeccable taste.
Release date: April 1, 2012
"Emma Townsend has always believed in stories—the ones she reads voraciously, and the ones she creates in her head. Perhaps it’s because she feels like an outsider at her exclusive prep school, or because her stepmother doesn’t come close to filling the void left by her mother’s death. And her only romantic prospect—apart from a crush on her English teacher—is Gray Newman, a long-time friend who just adds to Emma’s confusion. But escape soon arrives in an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre…
Reading of Jane’s isolation sparks a deep sense of kinship. Then fate takes things a leap further when a lightning storm catapults Emma right into Jane’s body and her nineteenth-century world. As governess at Thornfield, Emma has a sense of belonging she’s never known—and an attraction to the brooding Mr. Rochester. Now, moving between her two realities and uncovering secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane’s story, or in the unwritten chapters of her own..."
Reading of Jane’s isolation sparks a deep sense of kinship. Then fate takes things a leap further when a lightning storm catapults Emma right into Jane’s body and her nineteenth-century world. As governess at Thornfield, Emma has a sense of belonging she’s never known—and an attraction to the brooding Mr. Rochester. Now, moving between her two realities and uncovering secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane’s story, or in the unwritten chapters of her own..."
-Good Reads
- She's wearing a purple gown with long skirts. I've always wanted to play dress-up in one.
- Storyline is amazing. I'm currently trying to hold off on watching Jane Eyre so I can wait until my mom and I are together again...my will is slowly deteriorating.
- Time travel...AND the first of a series. Will the second book be about Jane or another time traveler?
How can this not make you squeal? Well I can understand if this isn't your favorite genre and you don't have any particular fondness of Jane Eyre.
But I'm a serious English buff.
What are you waiting on?
Don't forget to check out our 100 followers giveaway...up for grabs are a free ebook copy of The Space Between and a signed copy of The Revenant.
Author Interview and Giveaway
tháng 10 04, 2011
author interview, Paranormal, romance, Sonia Gensler, suspense, YA
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All About the Author (#2)
Spotlight on Sonia Gensler and The Revenant
I was so excited when I heard this book was coming out.
I recently met Sonia Gensler at an
Oklahoma Writer's Conference, and she is
such a nice and genuine person. She is in the same
critique group as someone I teach with at the high
school. Besides the cover,
what drew me to this book was that it
takes place in Oklahoma (where I live!) and
the main character pretends to be a teacher (what I do, but for real!) This book had everything: a creepy haunting, beautiful prose, and a great love story.
Read below for Sonia's thoughtful answers to my
questions and for a chance to win a signed copy of her book!
"When Willie arrives in Indian Territory, she knows only one thing: no one can find out who she really is. To escape a home she doesn't belong in anymore, she assumes the name of a former classmate and accepts a teaching job at the Cherokee Female Seminary.Nothing prepares her for what she finds there. Her pupils are the daughters of the Cherokee elite—educated and more wealthy than she, and the school is cloaked in mystery. A student drowned in the river last year, and the girls whisper that she was killed by a jealous lover. Willie's room is the very room the dead girl slept in. The students say her spirit haunts it.
Willie doesn't believe in ghosts, but when strange things start happening at the school, she isn't sure anymore. She's also not sure what to make of a boy from the nearby boys' school who has taken an interest in her—his past is cloaked in secrets. Soon, even she has to admit that the revenant may be trying to tell her something. . . "
(On your book The Revenant:
1. How did the original idea for The Revenant come to you?
It started brewing in my imagination when friends Brandi and Martha gave our critique group a tour of Tahlequah, OK (Brandi had recently relocated there). Part of the tour took us by the Northeastern State University campus and its beautiful centerpiece, Seminary Hall. When Martha explained that the building was once a Cherokee girls' school, I HAD to know more. My research inspired the setting and conflicts of The Revenant.
2. What genre would you classify this novel as since it has elements of historical fiction and paranormal romance?
It's definitely a mish-mash of genres. I personally like to call it a Gothic mystery, but booksellers usually classify it as paranormal romance.
3. Some readers may find it hard to believe that Willie passes for a teacher at 17 years old. What details did you provide for readers to make the situation plausible?
These days teachers must be college grads to get hired, but have you seen 22-year-olds lately? They look 17! Seriously, though, I tried to focus on Willie's dramatic flair to show that she was playing the role of a teacher. Mrs. Crenshaw comments on how young she looks, and how younger teachers have trouble holding themselves apart from students who are near their age, as if it's a common problem. Seminary graduates often returned to the school to teach (like Olivia Adair did), so young teachers wouldn't have been unusual at all.
4. Why did you choose to make one of Willie’s most prized possessions a volume of her father’s Shakespeare books?
It goes along with her dramatic flair. Her father was an actor, and her strategy for dealing with new and uncomfortable situations is to perform her way through them. She also sees the world through the lens of Shakespeare's characters and conflicts, so it seemed natural that she would treasure those books.
5. What do you like most about Eli Sevenstar?
I like how he switches back and forth between gentlemanly and dangerous behavior. He's a rule-breaker. He certainly keeps Willie on her toes!
6. The details about the haunting were quite descriptive. Did you have fun writing the suspenseful parts of the book?
It was hard work and required a lot of tweaking and revising. I guess it was too technical of a process for me to actually scare myself, but at times it was quite entertaining.
7. The style in which the book is written suits the time period well. It reminds me of Jane Austen or Charlotte Bronte type prose. Who are your favorite authors and were they inspirations to you in the writing of this novel?
Austen and Bronte will always inspire me. Bronte's Villette, which is about a young teacher in a foreign city, was a huge inspiration behind The Revenant. Other 19th century writers who shaped my style include Louisa May Alcott, L.M. Montgomery and Laura Ingalls Wilder. More recently I've been inspired by the historical fiction of Jennifer Donnelly, Libba Bray and Saundra Mitchell.
8. Among the issues this novel brings to light is the discrimination toward full-blooded Cherokee girls by girls who were half-Cherokee, half-Caucasian. What part of your research led you to believe this prejudice existed?
Devon Mihesuah, a professor in the Global Indigenous Nations Studies program at University of Kansas, wrote a very detailed account of the school and the various conflicts the girls experienced. I made extensive use of her book, Cultivating the Rosebuds: The Education of Women at the Cherokee Female Seminary, 1851-1909 in my research. The school admitted girls who were as little as 1/128 Cherokee, so it wasn't just a half vs. full blood quantum situation -- in truth, there was a lot of diversity, including some students whose cultural heritage included other tribes in addition to Cherokee. Mihesuah found evidence that the girls who were fairer-skinned and more acculturated often considered themselves superior to their darker-skinned, more traditional cousins, and this fostered resentment within the school. However, Richard Allen, policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation, reminded me that tensions didn't arise solely from racial discrimination -- there also were various socioeconomic biases, same as you see in schools today. I tried to touch on these issues in The Revenant, but hopefully in a manner that was sensitive and didn't overpower the mystery.
9. Have you visited the actual seminary that is portrayed in The Revenant?
Oh yes. I attended a Haunted Seminary Hall tour in 2008 and have returned to explore the building since then. As it's now a part of Northeastern State University, the building has been renovated quite a bit, but there's still a cool historical feel to it.
10. I heard rumors of a second book related to The Revenant. Can you tell us what it’s about?
I wonder who started that rumor? I do have a second book coming out from Knopf, but it won't be a sequel to The Revenant. I hope it will be another Gothic mystery, but the similarities end there. Several readers have expressed interest in a sequel, but I'm not sure that's going to happen. Maybe someday I'll write a short story -- one that gives us a peek into Willie's future.
For more information on Sonia Gensler and her writing, check out her blog by going to http://soniagensler.blogspot.com/
For our 100 Followers Giveaway, Alex Sokoloff, author of The Space Between, is providing one e-book copy for a lucky reader. We are now adding an additional prize to the pot for that same reader: an autographed copy of Gensler's book The Revenant.
If 50 people enter, I'll throw Stephanie Perkins' new book in the mix:
Please leave a comment on this post for the author then click HERE to officially enter the giveaway. The deadline is October 14th at midnight.
