Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie

I am totally stoked for the Youth Literature Seminar in November. Ally Condie is coming to town, and to distract myself from all the other books I have to read for school, I picked up Matched and Crossed. I'm waiting on my friend to finish Reached so that I can finish the trilogy.

In a future where the Society has deemed culture too cluttered, art, music, poetry, novels and more have been trimmed down to 100 key items each - 100 poems, 100 songs... Cassia Reyes has never known anything different and she is excited to be attending her Match Banquet. From the time they turn 17 young men and women are matched to the person with whom they will have the most optimum compatibility. Cassia has chosen a beautiful green silk dress for her banquet, and is only slightly surprised when she is matched with her best friend Xander. What does surprise her, is the face that appears on the microcard given to her after the match. It should contain information all about Xander for her to review. Instead Ky Markham's face flashes before her. Ky shouldn't have been matched. He's an aberration and not eligible to be matched. Suddenly, Ky shows up everywhere in Cassia's life. She sees him at leisure time, they are paired during hiking, and through these interactions, she starts to fall in love with him.

Crossed focuses on the consequences of Cassia and Ky's relationship, and develops the subtext of the Society and the Rising. A lot of these two books remind me of 1984. The idea that citizens are always being watched, and individuality is not a thing to be valued. Citizens don't even know how to write anymore - they can only type. The Society has trained the citizens to be skilled in only one trade to better manage them.

I admit, Matched was difficult for me to get into at first, as I was listening to it on CD in my car and the narrator was using this annoying, breathy voice. It was just bad. I also expected more from it. I felt like it was supposed to be a dystopic fiction with action and drama, but it was trying to be a romance. It felt like the story was a little schizophrenic. Crossed made up for that though. Cassia is a total dingbat who can't read the expressions on her companions' faces, but the reader can clearly understand the darker nature of what is going on, despite Cassia being unable. I love the world building in this series. I think Ally Condie did a fantastic job of recreating a world with which we as readers can be familiar, and then making it changing it just enough to be almost unrecognizable and sinister. I have lots of suspicions about who the Enemy is, and what the Rising is really about, but I'll have to wait for Reached to find out.

The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton

For Ponyboy Curtis there are two kinds of people: Greasers and Socs. Ponyboy is a Greaser. His brothers are Greasers, and so are his friends. Socs are the upper crust kids - the ones with the money, tuff cars, and Madras shirts. They get all the breaks, and the Greasers get all the trouble. 

Or so he thought. As Pony discovers, the world isn't black and white, Greasers and Socs. Life is tough all around, and the rumbles don't solve anything. 

This book is seen as one of the defining pieces of Young Adult literature, and for a good reason. It doesn't just bring up questions about violence and society, but it's a powerful coming of age story. Pony lives with his two older brothers after their parents die, and the three of them try to make everything work out. Darry is tough on Pony but not on Sodapop so Pony thinks that Darry doesn't love him, but he couldn't be more wrong. Pony doesn't like Dally cause he's tough and kinda scary, but Johnny knows better. There was a theme throughout regarding which was better, to keep your innocence, yet potentially leave yourself vulnerable; or to toughen up so no one will mess with you, but lose your ability to see beauty in the world. It's important to find a balance, but it's not always easy to stay gold in this world.

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body, and then being replaced by pain. Lots of pain."

So, I've been distracted lately. Very distracted. During a time-sucking pinterest excursion where I brainlessly scrolled down looking at everything I could be doing but wasn't because I was on pinterest instead... I came across an interesting bit of art. I clicked on it, and discovered that it was fan art of a podcast called Welcome to Night Vale. Thus, my weekend addiction began. I've been listening to it marathon-style for the past three days, and I've caught up to the present. It's... amazing. I am in love. It's bizarre, Lovecraftian, twisted, adorable, and hilarious.

The show takes place in a small, desert community called Night Vale. Cecil Baldwin narrates his radio show and tells stories about the town and its happenings - the secret police that watch over the town, reminders not to go near the dog park and not to approach the Mysterious Hooded figures. There are updates on the station "cat,"Khoshekh, and, of course, the Perfect, Beautiful, Scientist Carlos.

I'm so in love with this show, I don't know how to express it. It's just... fantastic.

Monster - Walter Dean Myers

Steve Harmon likes to make films. In order to cope and keep record of his current ordeal, he writes a screenplay, and he's decided the title should be what the state prosecutor calls him: Monster.

Told through the screenplay style, as well as journal entries, the story follows Steve through his trial for murder. He's 16 years old, and accused of being an accomplice in a robbery that ended with a man shot. This is a powerful narrative that sticks with the reader. Long after I read the last line, I was repeating it in my head, pondering the same question Steve was.

Throughout the book, I noticed Steve is an unreliable narrator, which made it more interesting for me. I'm used to taking the narrator's perspective as fact, so not being able to trust Steve's narration kept me reading and questioning.

The Infinite Moment of Us - Lauren Myracle

Wren Gray has spent her life trying to please her parents and make them proud. She didn't date, she focused on her studies, and she applied for early admission to Emory College where her mother works on a path to be a doctor just as her father wants. But high school is over, and Wren is starting to see that what she wants is not what her parents want, and maybe it's time for her to focus on herself for once.

Charlie Parker had a tough childhood, and has developed a deep need to be needed from that. But when he's alone, all he wants is to be with Wren Gray. He thinks she is everything, and if soul mates exist, she has got to be his. It isn't until just before graduation that they finally meet, but when they do, their souls touch and they are swept into a summer romance so strong, it can only be the beginning of forever.

At least, that's what Lauren Myracle would have the reader believe. I wasn't buying it. I felt like this book lacked substance. There were a few parts I enjoyed, a few quips during dialogue that were cute, but overall, I felt like the whole book read like a MarySue fan fiction. There was a lot of sexual moments, which I have not encountered in YA fiction like this. Generally there's a lot of innuendo and fade to black in the books I read. This was more graphic. I wouldn't say it was pornographic, especially since she only went halfway with her descriptions (at one point Charlie was fingering Wren and his "thumb stroked other places" - really? Lazy, Lauren).

The writing was not overly advanced, but the content is for a more mature reader, definitely. I wasn't a fan. That isn't to say I disapprove of smut (I don't - I love a good smutty romance), I just found this to fall short of my standards.

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - Matthew Quick

It's Leonard Peacock's 18th birthday, and for his present he's going to take his grandfather's Nazi P-38 and shoot Asher Beal, and then himself. But first he has some other presents to deliver to his friends and find out why Herr Silverman, his Holocaust history teacher, never rolls up his sleeves.

To be sure, that is an over simplification of the plot. Matthew Quick tells a powerful story about overcoming obstacles, and shows us how important other people can be in our lives.

I find it very difficult to write about this book, because it was such an emotional ride for me. I remember going through High School wanting to commit suicide, and while my reasons were not the same as Leonard's, I understood his pain. I found myself crying a lot while reading this. 

While this is considered YA fiction, it deals with some pretty adult content, and parents should be aware of that. 

Matthew Quick is also the author of The Silver Linings Playbook. 

Openly Straight - Bill Konigsberg

Rafe Goldberg grew up in very liberal Boulder, Colorado with his very liberal parents (they met at Oberlin), so when he told his parents that he was gay, they were fine with it. More than fine. They threw him a party, complete with paper hats that said, "Rafe is Gay, yay!" But with such a big to-do about his sexuality and his mother becoming the president of PFLAG, Rafe became labeled as The Gay Kid. And he didn't care for it. So in his junior year of High School, he moved across the country to Natick, Massachusetts to attend an all-boys boarding school where he planned not to tell anyone he was gay so that he could shed the label and just be Rafe.

The book raised a lot of questions about what it means to be yourself. If you don't tell anyone you are gay but you've already come out, are you still in the closet? If you say you accept yourself as gay, but you hide that part of yourself from others, are you really okay with it at all? Are you really lying to someone if you hide a part of yourself, or not?

Rafe has to deal with all of these questions as he joins the soccer team, makes friends with nerds and jocks alike, and falls in love.

I think this would make a really great book for group discussion with High Schoolers. The writing is witty, funny, and genuine. I felt like I was going through all the same epiphanies as Rafe as he had them near the end, which was really touching.