"Matched" by Ally Condie~AudioBook by Penguin

SUMMARY:
 

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.

INFORMATION ON THE AUDIO BOOK:

Published by:  Penguin/Audio
Format:  MP3
Unabridged
Number 1 of 3
Read by:  Kate Simses
Genre:  YA Fiction/Dystopian

Meet the Author:

Ally Condie is a former high school English teacher who lives with her husband and three sons outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She loves reading, running, eating, and listening to her husband play guitar.


The Bookish Dame Reviews:

As you may have now surmised I've begun to review audio books as a new feature of A Bookish Libraria.  This is the second one in the series.

I found this YA book to be directly in keeping with a young adult audience.  It's not a book I would necessarily recommend for a crossover audience to adult listeners because the reader has a strictly child-like voice. I felt she was younger that the age of the protagonist Cassie.  I felt she was miscast as the reader in this one.  Although her reading and "acting" abilities were good, she sounded a bit too young for the part of a 16 year old and it was distracting on whole.

However, the story Ms Condie writes is engaging and smart.  I enjoyed the book itself very much.  As in most dystopian novels there's a new world order that's meant to solve the problems of society and sharply misses doing that!  This is a society that makes the audio book absorbing.

Characters are well drawn and interesting.  Cassie, herself, is memorable.  She's a girl with the ability to think on her own in a society that discourages that sort of thing.  She's a girl who also has the courage to walk out of step in a world marching strictly to one cadence, and I appreciated that role-model for young adults.   I also was won over by the problem of her two loves!

So, a mixed bag here, but well worth the listen for young adults and adults who may not mind the voice. 

Penguin has also come out with audiobooks on the two follow up books in this series:  "Crossed" and "Reached."

With a better narrator, I would be tempted to listen to them!


3.5 stars for an interesting novel...                            Deborah/TheBookishDame