Review Time: Matched by Ally Condie

From Goodreads:

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.

I should start by saying that I had to cut half of this review because it was far too long and ranting...

Oh this book...just looking at it brings up my frustrations again. I promised to write this review over a month ago and the main reason that it did not happen is because I was just so upset. Since it was the first book I read in 2013 (regrets...oh the regret) it's safe to say that I had high expectations.I was just completely expecting more from the plot and the characters especially. Everything about Matched seemed so up my alley and perfect that I thought this is the type of story line where you just can't go wrong. Well, it turns out yes, yes you can go wrong with this story line. In fact, you can go so wrong that a person can turn the last page, put this junk down, and then refuse to look at it for over a month even though they promised the internet they would write about it. Now, I am working through my frustrations and disappointments to try and explain to you guys why I just did not like this book.

Every single character in this book just fell flat for me. Cassia, the protagonist, was unbelievably frustrating in every way that a character can be. I found her to be stupid, self centered, flat, and overall annoying. Maybe it was the fact that the whole story was told in the point of view of a character that drove me up the wall insane that really ruined the book for me. I have no idea. I just know that by the time I reached the midway point in this book I was dying to be out of this girls ridiculous sense of reasoning.

One of the main reasons I picked this book up in the first place is because its world and matching ceremony reminded me so much of The Giver by Lois Lowry and I thought that was awesome. The Giver is one of my all-time favorite books so if something sounds like it might be like that then I'm totally reading it. Unfortunately  Condie never told me enough about her dystopian society for me to by into it. That element is taken from  The world had the potential to be interesting but the book doesn't give enough detail about its inner workings to really get into it. Again, maybe having the whole story told through Cassia's self centered eyes is what ruined the book for me because she is always too busy thinking about her stupid love triangle to tell me about the world around her. It was a big frustration with this whole book. It felt like there was so much truly interesting stuff going on in the society, its government, and the war but all the dang book ended up being about was Cassia choosing between Xander and Ky. Why in the grand scheme of this society did I only get to hear about this so predictable romance? I can't even wrap my head around that. It was almost as if the author had two separate stories in her head and instead of writing two different books we got this little monster. Perhaps if the book was told through the point of view of Cassia's father than things could have been more interesting.

I'm going to do my best to not put any spoilers in this but basically one second your in the world and characters I described above and them BAM!. Suddenly everyone has real thoughts and Cassia is supposedly not as irritatingly stupid as before. I can see where this was coming from in the books umm plot (if your willing to call it that) but the build-up to this point was just not there. 

I ended up giving this book 3.5 stars on Goodreads.  Who knows, maybe I'm just being harder on this book because it was my first book of the year but my rating stands solid. At the moment I really don't think I will read the second book anytime soon because I have no wish to revisit these feelings but I'm really never good for my word. Lastly, I would just like to mention that although I clearly did not like this book it does not mean that you couldn't love it. Just because I do not enjoy the love triangle thing does not mean that others don't enjoy it. Perhaps a light dystopian with a romance is exactly what you need out of a book. Everyone has different preferences and if you really want to read this book then go for it! You should never let anyone else sway your opinions.