Book Review: The Knife of Never Letting Go

Pages: 479
Author: Patrick Ness
Goodreads: Review
Series: Chaos Walking (#1)
Publisher: Candlewick

In my heart of hearts (somewhere in that deep dark black soul I seem to have sometimes when reviewing books I've vehemently disliked) I don't know if this is a full five stars for me, and yet, it feels inaccurate to even think of giving it a four. I've got a rule with books to follow my heart and not my head. If a book demands my attention and the characters worm their way into my good graces and I'm worried for them, or I cry for them, then yeah, that book is getting those five shiny stars. But let's not get distracted by the shiny things like wayward Dory fish. This novel isn't without its flaws.

"What are these men doing in an army?"

Let me first gush over Ness' theme here: War. All of the ways in which he explores it. The Spackle scene most notably, a scene that made me feel physically ill and watered my eyes, the same way I'd feel after hearing stories of a similar nature on the non-fiction news. Because it's so true. It's so applicable to everything. Do you know how many Americans I've heard throw out slurs against people from the Middle East without batting an eyelash? Unnecessary wars and the terrorist acts of a few made it this way. It put weapons in the hands of boys and girls who, like Todd, had to accept the consequences of wielding them. It put hateful words in the mouths of people who wouldn't have ever called themselves racists. This book explores the lies we're told and how hard some people cling to them. How hard otherwise good people can cling to their hate when they've known nothing else.When their leaders and parents have told them this is how they should feel; and their loved ones have been sent to die at the hands of people who weren't the enemy. When people have written songs of putting boots in asses and how, don't you know, that's the American way? Making monsters of men.

"Somehow preaching became a movement and a movement became a war."

Let's talk about a brighter point. Manchee the talking dog. Manchee Manchee Manchee. I love him. Oh wait, that's not a brighter point. I hate this book. Why am I reviewing it? I better move past this point before I take away stars. Emotional manipulation is no one's friend, Ness. Cheap shot.

Viola Viola Viola. If you care for her at all, you'll read her short story: The New World. Lady badass with snarky intelligence and a good heart who not only rescues but is rescued. I like her friendship with Todd too. Particularly when he tells the sexist camp that she's not his but her own and when he realizes he can read her too. Orphans who make their own family. My poor heart.

My main issue with this novel is the ending. There isn't one. This book was basically one long chase scene with bad guys everywhere and for all Ness' preaching about Hope there wasn't an ounce of it in his novel. There wasn't, I swear, I looked.

I also want to mention that it took me some time to get into this book and I ended up putting it aside. It wasn't until I read the prequel that my interest was piqued and I had to know what happened. If you've put this book aside before I recommend reading that so you know more about Viola and it might give you the push you need to continue too.

"War is a monster. War is the devil. It starts and it consumes and it grows and grows. And otherwise normal men become monsters too."

Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

I’m pushing aside
the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana
and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.

Pages: 375
Author: Lauren Oliver
Add It: Goodreads
Series: Delirium (#2)
Publisher: Harper Teen

I have grown into somewhat of a diehard Lauren Oliver fan. I just like everything she does. That is basically my entire review for the novella Hana: I just like everything Lauren Oliver does. Guess what? That was a lie. I didn’t like this that much.

Okay, I liked it. That’s what a three star rating means to me: I liked it but there was something missing or something wrong. I expected better of this book. I spent a great deal of the book bored. It took me awhile to finish this. I felt completely detached from Lena’s story for most of the book. I really didn’t like the choice to split the book into Then and Now. I can see why she chose to tell the story that way, but it was like reading two completely different books, and I just kept finding myself annoyed that when I would finally get into what was happening in one section I had to read about the other.

I enjoyed all of the side characters in the Then story. I enjoyed reading about Lena’s interactions with them and the struggle of living among the Invalids. Oliver certainly knows how to make the feeling of grief tackle you from the pages of her story, dragging you down until you feel it right alongside her heroine. Much of Before was rife with emotion. Raven’s story in particular was especially harrowing and beautiful.

I enjoyed Now’s story much less. It felt too plain to me. It didn’t do anything to stand out from the many other dystopian novels on the shelves. There was just something about it that felt like I’d read it all before, and not even Lauren’s gorgeous prose could save it for me. I also didn’t buy the romance between Lena and Julian. I liked it only because Oliver seemed to be allowing Lena to move on instead of the usual in YA in which One True Love is all our heroine gets, but the relationship between them seemed to only be formed by proximity and chaos, and it didn’t feel entirely genuine to me. It seemed like Lena was falling for him when she wasn’t completely over Alex, instead of giving herself time to properly grieve and move on, which will only allow room for the [spoiler: dreaded love triangle] later on.

The book ended in a cliffhanger that I found predictable and very disappointing. I also have begun to grow a specific hatred for books that so obviously end in a cliffhanger this way, and it did nothing to improve my feelings toward the book. I really hope that the conclusion to this series is satisfying. If anyone can get it back on track it’s Lauren Oliver.

Book Review: When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

Hannah Payne’s life has been devoted to church and family. But after she’s convicted of murder, she awakens to a nightmarish new life. She finds herself lying on a table in a bare room, covered only by a paper gown, with cameras broadcasting her every move to millions at home, for whom observing new Chromes—criminals whose skin color has been genetically altered to match the class of their crime—is a sinister form of entertainment. Hannah is a Red for the crime of murder. The victim, says the State of Texas, was her unborn child, and Hannah is determined to protect the identity of the father, a public figure with whom she shared a fierce and forbidden love.

Pages: 352
Author: Hillary Jordan
Add It: Goodreads
Publisher: Algonquin
Rating: 2/5

How absolutely cool is the premise of this book? People's skin is genetically mutated a certain color to paint them as certain shades of criminal. Red skin means murderer. In this society, red skin also means someone who has had an abortion, a procedure that has been deemed illegal now that Roe V. Wade has been overturned. This novel had the potential to be as frightening as Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, a novel that didn't seem entirely far fetched, and still does not in a world where women still have to fight for their right to have complete control over their bodies. I think books of this nature are especially important given the current fight over birth control that has cropped up as candidates fight to challenge Obama in this year's election. People like Rush Limbaugh really exist. There are groups of people out there who want a world like this one to be the one we live in. Books like this one are almost realistic fiction when you think about it like that. Terrifying.

The novel starts out strong. Hannah Payne has recently been transformed to become a Chrome, her skin mutated Red, to represent her crime of abortion. She must live her days on camera inside of jail, where her every move is being broadcasted to people at home for their entertainment. Experiencing with Hannah her first moments as a Chrome, alone in solitary, is deeply intimate. Because of her perceived crime Hannah is subjected to humiliation and psychological torture. It was very interesting and painful to be inside of Hannah's head as she dealt with this experience.

Hannah is soon released and dropped off in a religious facility aimed at "curing" women chromes and bringing them back to the light of Jesus or whatever. This section of the book actually wasn't half bad. There were some definitely great points made using Hannah's experiences in that facility; even if perhaps Jordan should not have been so heavy handed with the message and allowed the "evil" characters to be humanized a bit. A particularly frightening thing about this facility was that Hannah and others were forced to create and carry around dolls that represented the "child" they aborted.

Once Hannah leaves the facility things get a little far fetched. She joins a sort of underground program put in place by those that oppose the new government and after that it is one unbelievable situation after another. Hannah's narrative is also a little weird. She still considers herself a murderer even if she doesn't believe she deserves all of the ways she's been treated, and that is never resolved. I also didn't buy her loyalty to the father of her baby, or why she would put entire groups of people at risk just to see him one last time. Also, there is a brief segue into lesbianism that would have had more meaning if it had, well, meant anything at all and didn't seem to be just a convenient plot point to represent Hannah's supposed awakening.

I think this book would have been far better served if it had focused on Hannah being made an outcast by society as a whole, and the treatment she would have received trying to live a normal life as a Red.

I'm mixed on whether or not I'd recommend this one. It was a fairly enjoyable read, the idea of chromes was fantastic, the feminist themes were important, but in the end it fell short of everything it was trying to accomplish. I'd much rather recommend The Handmaid's Tale instead.

Book Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Finished: December 24, 2011

Pages: 320 (Paperback)

Author: Lauren DeStefano

Add It: Goodreads

Series: The Chemical Garden (#1)

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Source: Purchased

Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out. When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home. But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she trusts, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left.

Read the first chapter of Wither at Simon & Schuster's website.

Quote: “There's nothing here to say good-bye to. There's no dancing girl. No mischievous smile. She's gone, off with her sisters, broken free, escaped. And if she were here now, she would say, "Go.”

Cover Love?: As soon as the cover art was released, my interest in this novel was piqued. Call me superficial, but I love some good cover art. I think that the cover really captures the feel of the novel, of the blanket of glamour that has been thrown over Rhine's horrible world, to hide all that is beneath. I also really love the purple coloring.

Thoughts: I wanted to like Wither. Considering the fact that I eat up Dystopia novels the same way I eat a tray of cookies placed anywhere in my vicinity, I was fully expecting to love this. I sat down with the beautiful purple book and went forward with no hesitation. Unfortunately, once I got to Linden's mansion, I began experiencing a strange feeling. We'll call it frustration.

For me, it was completely unrealistic to see Rhine expressing any sort of emotion toward Linden. Were we supposed to feel sorry for this character as we watched him bed hop between three different girls? One of them being a thirteen year old? Were we supposed to believe that Linden was so naive to his father's cruel plans despite the fact that he begins the novel by selecting his brides from a line up? If this was the author's intention, then for me as a reader, she failed to make me believe. I've included a bit of a spoiler after this sentence in white text: Are we also supposed to see Rhine as virtuous compared to her sister brides? When Gabriel comes into her room to see her with Linden in her bed, he begins to act cold to her, but why? Are we to think that if Rhine was intimate with Linden it would be her fault? I thought Rhine being chosen as the favorite, but keeping her virginity intact, did a disservice to the novel. It was completely unrealistic given the world Rhine was living in, and I think in an effort to keep Linden seen to the reader as a somewhat naive blundering idiot, he was kept a bit more gentle in scenes with Rhine, than he might have been with her sister brides. We are given only glimpses of the things he is doing to them behind closed doors.

I also thought the world building was more than a bit off. One of the biggest questions I ask myself when reading dystopia is "Do I believe this can really happen?" and here, the answer is no. While the novel does evoke a Handmaid's Tale vibe (a book that was an example of an extremely believable and horrific dystopia to me) this novel seems to try too hard to make itself alarming. A Handmaid's Tale scenario would make sense and would have been just as horrendous, without adding this strange killing disease to the mix. It might have been a cool idea if the disease had made a bit more sense, but males and females dying mysteriously at exact ages? That seems too far fetched. The five year age difference between the deaths of females and males felt like a convenient plot detail.

One thing I did really love about this book was the relationship between the sister wives. I've never seen something like that explored before, and it was completely fascinating to watch three very different girls thrust into a precarious situation, and watch them form such deep bonds to one another. I found their scenes together, particularly those toward the end, to be extremely heartwarming. In my opinion, this is one book that might have benefited from multiple perspectives. I would have loved a perspective from Jenna.

Another thing that was clear to me from reading is the fact that Lauren DeStefano is, in fact, a very good writer. The world Rhine was pushed into was described in beautiful detail. I could easily imagine the grand dresses and delicious floral baths. They jumped from the pages and pulled me in. 

I haven't decided yet if I will continue with the series. 

Recommendation: Extremely loyal dystopia fans. Those who aren't bothered by a bit of far fetched world building. Those who don't mind a small case of InstaLove.

Rating:

  

Two out of Five Coffees

Wither is on sale now in paperback. You can purchase it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository and other retailers. The sequel, Fever, will be released February 21, 2012.

Extras: Want to check out some other perspectives on Wither? Find other reviews at Fantastic Book Review & Makeshift Bookmark.

Looking for other books similar to this one? You might also like The Handmaid's Tale, Delirium & Bumped.

Review: Angelfall by Susan Ee

Finished: December 28, 2011

Pages: 255

Susan Ee: Website/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Series: Penryn & the End of Days (#1)

Synopsis: It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back. Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel. Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl. Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

You can read the first five chapters of Angelfall at Susan’s website.

Quote:

“Angels are violent creatures.”

“So I noticed. I used to think they were all sweet and kind.”

“Why would you think that? Even in your Bible, we’re harbingers of doom, willing and able to destroy entire cities. Just because we sometimes warned one or two of you beforehand doesn’t make us altruistic.” 

Thoughts: So many rave reviews have been posted for this book in the past few days, that I’m probably just preaching to the choir at this point, but I enjoyed this book so much that I want to promote it so others can find it too. So here I am, adding to the praise!

I devoured this book so quickly, I almost wonder if I’m capable of writing a detailed review about it. I walked away from it in a sleepy and satisfied daze, though shocked at the ending. I love a book that is unpredictable, and this book was certainly that. If you think you know exactly what is going to happen in the end, you’re probably wrong.

Angelfall starts off and reminds me a lot of both The Hunger Games and Daughter of Smoke and Bone right away. The main character is fiercely independent and tough when it comes to making hard decisions, very reminiscent of Katniss, and the setting is dark and gritty and easy to imagine. The author crafts her words in a way that allow you to fully envision the world, which I’ve found is not something every author does for me. Penryn also has a mother and sister that she is responsible for, but their relationships are deeply twisted. Despite the comparisons to the aforementioned books, this book is a whole other animal entirely. I don’t claim to know the publishing world, but I almost wonder if one reason this book is so good is because the author self-published the novel, and didn’t have anyone she had to please. There are some things in this book so horrific that it’s shocking, and there are some uses of language by male soldiers that you wouldn’t expect to see in a YA novel, but they work. They feel real in this world that is supposed to be the end of days. Some post-apocalyptic novels don’t manage to capture the feeling that the world has gone completely mad, they don’t want to make things too gritty and dark for their heroine even if that is what would be realistic, but in this book, Susan Ee accomplishes just that. Cannibals, anyone?

The romance in this book is A+. While at times it does stray into the cliche of Penryn obsessing over the angel’s beauty in her private thoughts, it never really became annoying, and she stayed focused on the task at hand. The romance in this book takes a backseat to the story, as it should in a world where so many things are happening, and as a result the end feels all the more heart-wrenching and real. You could actually feel this love develop, see how it might have become what it is, and you don’t feel manipulated. This is important.

I’ve never been a fan of books centered around angels, but it seems after 2011, I can no longer say that is so. I enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Unearthly, and now Angellfall immensely. I even think the angels in Angelfall were the most interesting. They are evil (but not all) and their wings and skin are unnatural colors. The author also takes the mythology and sticks close to it but spins it into something truly exciting. I don’t know much about religion, but after the end of the book, I looked up the things referenced here and appreciated the book even more when I was through.

Self-published? Yes. I’ve never really read self-published books. I simply do not have the time to sift through for the hidden gems, when I’ve got so many other books on my shelves already, but this novel stands as proof that these gems are out there, and they need to be noticed. This was truly one of my favorite novels of the year and I could easily see it as a movie. It is better than several of the other hyped dystopian novels I’ve read and far more deserving of recognition. I truly hope the author receives it.

Recommendation: Dystopia lovers, Fantasy lovers, Angel lovers, Mythology lovers, Instalove haters, seekers of badass protagonists.

Rating:

Five out of Five Coffees

Angellfall is on sale now only (currently) in Ebook format. You can purchase it right now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble for only 99cents! You do not need to have a Kindle device to purchase from Amazon. You can download the Kindle App on to your Apple device or computer.

Extras: Want to check out some other perspectives on Angelfall? Find other reviews at The Nocturnal Library and The Midnight Garden.

Looking for other books similar to this one? You might also like The Hunger Games, Daughter of Smoke and Bone and Pure.

Review: Pure by Julianna Baggott

Finished: December 9, 2011

Pages: 448

Author: Website/Twitter/Facebook/Goodreads

Book: Goodreads

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (Hachette)

Series: Pure (#1)

Synopsis: We know you are here, our brothers and sisters…

Pressia barely remembers the Detonations or much about life during the Before. In her sleeping cabinet behind the rubble of an old barbershop where she lives with her grandfather, she thinks about what is lost-how the world went from amusement parks, movie theaters, birthday parties, fathers and mothers…to ash and dust, scars, permanent burns, and fused, damaged bodies. And now, at an age when everyone is required to turn themselves over to the militia to either be trained as a soldier or, if they are too damaged and weak, to be used as live targets, Pressia can no longer pretend to be small. Pressia is on the run.

Burn a Pure and Breathe the Ash…

There are those who escaped the apocalypse unmarked. Pures. They are tucked safely inside the Dome that protects their healthy, superior bodies. Yet Partridge, whose father is one of the most influential men in the Dome, feels isolated and lonely. Different. He thinks about loss-maybe just because his family is broken; his father is emotionally distant; his brother killed himself; and his mother never made it inside their shelter. Or maybe it’s his claustrophobia: his feeling that this Dome has become a swaddling of intensely rigid order. So when a slipped phrase suggests his mother might still be alive, Partridge risks his life to leave the Dome to find her. 

You can read an excerpt from Pure at the book’s website. Click on “The Opening Pages” to read.

Thoughts:

Pure is one of the most original post-apocalyptic stories I’ve come across. Patridge’s world inside the dome reflects a more familiar setting, the sort of dystopia story we are used to, with residents of the dome living under a strict new set of rules put in place by the new leaders, to supposedly protect them from repeating their tragic history. The citizens of the dome listen to only sanctioned songs, dine on soytex pills for their meals, and only those selected as genetically superior are allowed to breed. Life outside the dome, however, is much different. Both sides of the Dome are filled with characters who long for the littlest bits of the past, and both lives are horrifying, in their own way.

Outside the Dome, the word “good” doesn’t mean what you think it means… Pressia’s world is suffering the after effects of an unusual cocktail of atomic bombs. It hurts the heart to think that my very own country has used atomic bombs against people. These are not things that we can afford to forget. Pressia’s story is not entirely unrealistic, and I think that’s why this story hits so close to home, and felt more terrifying to me than other dystopian plots.

Pressia was definitely my favorite character in the novel. Her personality was endearing. In another environment, Pressia would probably be a quieter character. You see a lot of that in her inner voice. Pressia’s world forces her to be more pragmatic, a survivor, much more than the normal sixteen year old girl that she so desperately wants to be. Pressia was seven when the detonations hit. She does not know what handshakes are and she doesn’t remember eggs or lemonade. Pressia’s journey isn’t one of rebellion. Like all of the kids in this novel, she is just trying to survive in a world gone horribly wrong.

I found the parts of the plot that focused on who got into the Dome to be very interesting. Without giving too much away, those who got into the Dome were very rich, very religious, and very powerful. Before the end, church attendance was a matter of public record, and a group called the “feminine feminists” gave off a very Handmaid’s Tale vibe. The leaders in the Dome choose to describe the people left behind as sick in the head and criminally insane. This is frightening given the state of politics in our world.

Many comparisons are drawn in the novel between Pressia and Partridge’s worlds. What is the definition of beauty? Can it exist inside the Dome walls when most of life inside is fabricated? Can it exist outside where the atomic bombs have caused such destruction and created such deformities? Lyda, a resident of the Dome, spends time looking out a window that has been created to represent the scenery outside, but is not actually real. The window makes Lyda feel manipulated. Outside, Pressia makes beauty out of recycled parts and turns them into birds and other little creatures, despite being ashamed of her own mutation. I think the conclusion is, life outside the Dome will always be more beautiful, because despite everything else it’s real. The survivor’s scars and mutations are beautiful because it means they have survived.

As a side note, I am even more afraid of motherhood after reading this novel. If you’ve read, you will see why! Also, I may never wear gaudy jewelry again.

Recommendation: I do think that Pure will appeal to only a certain reader. Others will find it too dark or too grotesque. The people in Pure tend to have mutations that will make you rather uncomfortable. There also isn’t a whole lot of rebellion here, for those of you who prefer the more action packed “fist pump” dystopias. There is action here, but it’s of a different kind, and much time is spent unraveling how this world came to be and the character’s roles in that. To sum it up: you should read this if you are looking for something different from the genre, you can appreciate a slower story, and you aren’t easily unnerved. It’s worth it.

Rating:

Four out of Five Coffees

Pure will be released February 28, 2012. You can Pre-Order it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and other retailers.

I received an egalley of this title from the Publisher (Grand Central Publishing) via Netgalley. This has in no way affected or influenced my review. I would like to thank the publisher and Netgalley for allowing me the opportunity to provide an early review of this release.

Extras: Want to check out some other perspectives on Pure? Find other early reviews at Ravishing Reads and Reading in the Corner.

Looking for other books similar to this one? You might also like The Hunger Games, Unwind, and Oryx and Crake.

Since there is a bit of a wait until this title is available, this review will be posted again on the release date.

Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Finished: November 14, 2011

Series: Matched (#1)

Synopsis: 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.

Read or listen to an excerpt from Matched at the book’s website.

Quote: “His lips move silently, and I know what he says: the words of a poem that only two people in the world know.” 

Thoughts: My relationship with Matched began last year before the book was released. I began to see the book cover floating around the blogging community and was very curious about it. I really liked the cover and immediately added the book to my to read list. I still really love the cover. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Matched’s contents live up to the expectations the cover created for me. On its surface Matched appears to be a beautiful package that cannot fail, but within the pages it fails to be great. It reaches “good” but kind of in the same way that you’d enjoy an ice cream flavor like vanilla if it weren’t your favorite. Sure, it’s good. It’s ice cream. Yet, it would be so much better if it were a nice scoop of that quirky Mint Chocolate Chip.

The ideas behind the story in Matched are not exactly new to the dystopian genre. In fact, as you will see a lot of reviews mentioning, the set up is very similar to the society in 1993’s The Giver. Cassia is living in a society that carefully controls various details of each community member’s life. What they eat, who they marry, even whether or not they have trees in their front yard. Personally, I think that a lot of novels with a dystopia setting are going to be similar to the earlier offerings of the genre, and I never mind a modern retelling. I just wish Condie had taken the idea and given a spin to it that would have made it shine as a story all its own.

The issue with this book certainly has nothing to do with entertainment value. Matched delivers a page turning story that is a surprisingly quick read. I finished it in a day. Looking back, I am not really sure what drew me to the novel. I would consider it literary candy; only slightly healthier. Condie’s writing never stands out, but it certainly isn’t bad or laughable in any way. Much like the rest of the components of the novel, Condie’s writing in Matched is good enough. It flows easily, but for the most part, isn’t all that memorable.

One enjoyable part of the novel was Cassia’s relationship with her grandfather and the poem he gave her.

"Do not go gentle into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light."

This is actually a poem by Dylan Thomas, which has been outlawed and destroyed (or so they thought) in Cassia’s society. I liked that Cassia’s rebellion was led by a poem, and her society’s choice to destroy all of the words that they thought might incite passion or cause chaos within the community. Because what is the point of living without passion? Without poetry? Are you really living? These are questions that Matched explores and it was a message I very much enjoyed.

Cassia as a narrator leaves a lot to be desired. Often, you wish she would stop letting life pass her by and instead reach out and grab it. I understand that she was raised in a society that does not allow for independence, but I do wish we had seen a little bit more fire in her earlier in the story. For example, why did she burn the poem? It had been kept hidden all of those years. Cassia never seemed like she had much of a backbone, so her inevitable rise against the oppressive society seemed forced and unrealistic.

It’s time to talk about the love triangle, isn’t it? I’m not sure that you can call it that when Xander is hardly given any development or page time; instead his character is left living in the shadow of Cassia’s doomed love affair with Ky, which is the bigger driving force behind her rebellion. There were moments of sweetness between Ky and Cassia that I enjoyed, but their affair was inevitably predictable from the moment Cassia saw him on the Matched chip. I think it would have been more interesting if she had fallen in love with Xander, and the novel explored what it meant for Cassia to accept that the society was right about certain things, but that accepting a life with Xander didn’t mean that she had to live on their terms. Ky seemed to be the obvious choice from the start and the tension remained notably absent. I am neither Team Xander or Team Ky. In fact, you could say I shipped Cassia with poetry most of all. I also loved Cassia’s relationship with her family members and found the ending to be rather heartwarming.

My hope is that Crossed provides more insight into the minds of Ky and Xander and finds its feet; perhaps throwing in some twists and turns and making Cassia, and the story itself, a little less predictable. In the end Matched seems like a book filled with easy predictions, predictions that the officials in Matched’s society itself could have made with a few simple tests.

Recommendation: I would recommend this book to hardcore fans of the genre or younger and reluctant readers. Like I said, I found the novel enjoyable, even if it was a bit vanilla.

Rating:

Matched is on sale now in both hardcover and paperback. You can purchase it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, The Book Depository, and other retailers. The sequel to Matched, Crossed, was released in hardcover November 1, 2011.

Extras: Want to check out some other perspectives on Matched? Read other reviews at Recovering Potter Addict and 365 Days of Reading.

Looking for other books similar to this one? You might also like Delirium, Uglies and Divergent.

Review: Enclave by Ann Aguirre

Finished: November 10, 2011

Synopsis: In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember. As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning… 

Quote: “There were different kinds of strength. I knew that now. It didn’t always come from a knife or a willingness to fight. Sometimes it came from endurance. Where the well ran deep and quiet. Sometimes it came from compassion and forgiveness.” 

Thoughts: Zombies! Enclave is just one offering of many in the YA Dystopia genre these days, but the difference between Enclave and a lot of these books, is that Enclave actually has something that feels original to offer. On the surface Enclave is much like a lot of the other Dystopia offerings out there. It’s the end of the world as we know it and we’ve got a heroine who intends to fight the system, the oppressive one put in place by those left behind, who only feels beautiful when she’s fighting.

“I never felt beautiful unless I was fighting, and even then it was something that went beyond skin and bone into the kinetic joy of successive movements.”

One difference here is that Deuce does not start out as a rebel. This is a large part of her struggle throughout the novel, and adds a nice depth to her character. Despite the kindness in her heart, Deuce agrees with the leaders and believes in the necessity of making hard decisions for the better of the people, even if it may mean hurting one person.

Another thing worth mentioning is the writing itself. I found myself writing down various sentences because they were just so lovely. Aguirre succeeds here, not only with her characters and story, but also with her distinctive writing style.

An enthralling thriller that kept me in its grip until the very end, the only issue found within Enclave for me was it’s use of the dreaded Love Triangle™. Second only to Instalove™ in the “Biggest Romance Cliche An Author Can Ruin Their Novel With” list (a list I just made up perhaps) the Love Triangle™ has ruined many an original novel with its ability to ruin characters in an instant and detract from any originality found within the rest of the story. While I will concede that the Love Triangle™ made a little more sense here than in other books, given the fact that it represented Deuce’s inner struggle of Kindness vs. Survival Instinct, it still pulled me away from characters I was otherwise coming to care about.

I hope that the sequel to Enclave packs the same punch and can deliver to us more depth to the story that Aguirre has started here. I would recommend this to anyone who devours Dystopia novels with the same fervor as I do. 

Edit: A few different reviews now have made me consider this book in a new light. One review belonging specifically to one of my favorite reviewers: Ms. Library. Toward the end of the book there is use of the Bad Boy Trope that I tend to find so abhorrent, but at the time it didn't bother me, because from my perspective the author didn't seem to be romanticizing this character. In fact, I thought he was just being used to further Deuce's development as she struggled with choosing between her survivalist side, and the side of her that needed to realize every person counted, and she needed to think of more than herself. I thought, and still think, that he was being used to show that the attitude Deuce was raised with was wrong. So as unnerved as I was by Deuce not exactly rejecting his affections, that didn't bother me.

One thing that does bother me though, that others have mentioned, is the detached way that the author handles a character who was raped. While I understand that the author was trying to show us a horrific world in which characters had to make these hard choices to survive, I do think in retrospect that she could have dealt with the subject of rape in a more compassionate manner. In fact, Ceilidh's Review points out that at one point Deuce thinks to herself that if the character were stronger, the rape wouldn't have happened. I must have missed that part, because I find that absolutely appalling. Rape is never the victim's fault. EVER. So despite really enjoying this book when I read it and feeling like it was one of the better dystopian offerings out there, I will be bumping this down from four stars to two.

Rating:

Two out of Five Coffees