Matched & Crossed

Warning: Spoilers for Ally Condie's Matched as well as Beth Revis' Across the Universe ahead.

Today was a day that I knew I had to go to Petsmart to get food for my kitties. Petsmart days are always dangerous because right behind the shop is a Barnes & Noble. I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows which is the fourth book in the fantastic Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, but as the manuscript had to be split as it was getting too large this book is the first half of what has become two parts of one overall story. It's a bit of a slower read - for me - as I'm reading from the rotating perspective (something GRRM does very well) of characters I only knew peripherally earlier. I needed a bit of a mind break.

The point to all of this is that since I had some other books I knew I wanted to read I popped in for a look. Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde is on my list and that was at the back of the store near the YA...and before I could even get to the fiction I saw the intriguing cover of Ally Condie's Matched. I sat down to read the first couple pages and before long I was 76 pages in on a sunny day. My decision was to check it out from the library and sit outside and read. And I read and read until it was finished.

I really enjoyed this book. Dystopian anything is my favorite genre, books or films, and what really got me about Matched is that it had lots of concepts that other books include, but I felt it did them a little more fluidly. It sort of touched on Lauren Oliver's Delirium  by living in a controlled society and the main female character having met a boy that was from outside of society, but manages to live among the 'normal' population. The poisoning of the elderly and infirm reminded me a bit of Across the Universe.  The characters were nicely developed and the insertion of poetry as a sort of lifeline throughout the story made my heart smile.

Annnd so I'm very much looking forward to the sequel, Crossed. Here's its cover: 

Clean and simple with muted colors to good effect, sort of like The Hunger Games and its use of the mockingjay. With Matched Cassia was in a globe of sorts wearing her pretty - and unique - green dress, reflecting her eyes. Here she's still in the globe but she's beginning to step out and the color scheme is blue like Ky's eyes and so I guess we'll be finding out a bit more about Ky in the sequel.

2011 is a good year for books!