Book Review: Matched

TITLE: Matched
Book 1 in the Matched Trilogy
AUTHOR: Ally Condie
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Dystopian, romance
SHORT PREMISE: A girl lives in a world where everything including who you marry is decided for you.
MY REVIEW: Okay, I liked Matched a lot, I really did. But during reading I suffered from what I have decided to call Over Hype Syndrome. What is Over Hype Syndrome you ask? It's what I've decided to call what happens when I read a book that has been hyped a lot. When a book gets hyped a lot I can't help it: I get high expectations sometimes too high such as the case with Matched. Because I get high expectations it is thus inevitable that the book fails to meet those expectations and I start to notice big gaping problems with the book that I otherwise might have been able to oeverlook in a normal book that wasn't so over hyped. I suppose this is the downside to being a book blogger as opposed to someone who is not so in the know of what's hot.
Because of the hype I noticed plot holes because I was expecting it to be perfect. No book is perfect and Matched isn't. It spends way too much time on the romance angle when I think it would have been better to focus on this really interesting world that Condie created. I personally found the love part to be the most obvious and least interesting thing in the book so I was frusterated when I got an interesting little morsal about the world but then quickly would get back to "oh, is Ky the one?!" To some extent the revalations at the end did explain the focus but at the same time I felt she could have focused on the more interesting parts of the world. I also found the shift of Cassie going "The Society protects us" to "I hate the Society" to be REALLY abrupt and sudden and I didn't understand how she got to that point when a chapter ago she was perfectly happy living under the Society's rule. Plus to be quite honest large parts of this were dull because it focused so much on the obvious and uninteresting romance.
But it was also decently written. It makes you think. I was really interested in this world that Condie created even if I didn't understand everything (such as why people let the Society tell them what to do. I understood it in Delirium because they were essentially numbing people's emotions and thus numbing their free will and it was clear that a lot of brain washing/conditioning was going on as well. That wasn't happening so much here and it was clear not as many people were happy or content with the way things were). Also some of those revelations at the end...ouch. Plus I think this is leading into a much bigger story and we haven't gotten the entire picture yet.
So I give Matched a lot of leeway because I recognize that the over hype gave me way too high expectations and because this is the first book. But I have to say I expect a lot more to actually happen in the second one, like I don't know, something OTHER then "is Ky the one for me?" How about a rebellion because it's clear people aren't happy. Also more on that war that you briefly mentioned in one page would be nice. So I'm giving a higher rating then I would normally with the expectation that the next book will be better and with far more interesting stuff going on. I do think this book is good and recomend it but I was expecting a lot better but again, I think that was due to the over hype. The second book Crossed comes out in October.
WHO SHOULD READ: dystopian fans, Twilight fans, Wither fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five silk dresses