Book Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

Lola Nolan spends much of her life planning her next costume.  She loves expressing herself through her clothes–the more outrageous, the better.  In addition to being something of a clothes horse, Lola’s a good daughter and friend.  Her life leading into her junior year looks to be pretty good: she’s got a hot, older, rock-star boyfriend, a good job at a local movie theater, and the perfect dress plan for the winter formal.  Everything falls apart when the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket move back into the neighborhood.  Now Lola’s forced to deal with her issues that she’s long repressed.  If she’s really over what happened with Cricket all those years ago, why does she feel so confused whenever he’s around?

Here’s the thing about second novels.  They often fail to live up to their predecessor.  This is especially true when one considers companion novels.  Stephanie Perkins’s Anna and the French Kiss was one of the most beloved books to come out of last year (and possibly ever to come out of the YA canon).  To say that there was a lot of anticipation leading up to the release of Lola and the Boy Next Door is an understatement of the highest order.  There was no possible way that Lola could live up to the hype.

The thing is, while Anna might be the more enjoyable read, Lola actually succeeds in ways that Perkins’s debut did not.  While I loved Anna with all my heart (it is the book version of my happy place), it didn’t take risks the way that Lola did.  In Lola, Perkins crafts a heroine who is not only unconventional but a little unlikable, and she allows for a slightly darker edge to creep into her story.  That’s enough comparisons, though.  Let’s get to the real reason we’re all here.  Lola.

Perkins is a really, really good writer.  Her prose is descriptive but direct.  Her characters are some of the most-developed you’ll find in the YA world.  Her dialogue is not only believable but genuinely funny–which is a rare treat.  She creates settings that are atmospheric and take on a life of their own.  No one writes unrequited longing like Perkins does.  All of these things are present in Lola, which makes for an overall pleasant reading experience.

What is interesting to note about this book, though, is the risks Perkins took with the so-quirky-it’s-almost-grating Lola.  Whereas Anna was a very likable heroine, a sort of everygirl that readers could get behind, Lola is a horse of a different color.  She’s vivacious and unafraid to stand out, but she also keeps people at a distance through the use of her costumes.  I’ve seen more than one review where the writer complained that they didn’t connect to Lola the way they wanted to, and I believe it.  Lola’s holding in a lot of her issues, and that means that she’s holding in parts of herself that would otherwise come across to the reader.  She’s got some painful issues to work through (while this relates to the Bell twins, I also think it relates more deeply to her issues with her birth mother).  Lola is hiding in plain sight.

Cricket, on the other hand, is incapable of hiding anything.  From the moment he reenters Lola’s life, he is unable to stop himself from saying exactly what he thinks.  He is open and unafraid of his feelings.  It is this that provides a nice juxtaposition to the character of Lola.  The two of them have a nice back-and-forth that adds depth and tension to the story.  The two also have some of the best on-page chemistry I’ve seen in quite some time.

The only real issue I had with the story was the handling of Lola’s older boyfriend, Max.  I felt like he went through some serious character decay near the end of the book to make him less desirable to Lola and to readers.  It’s this kind of plotting (which happens in YA a lot, I think) that irritates me so much.  There was enough authentic tension in Lola’s relationship with Max without adding in elements that felt forced and tied the story up too neatly.

On the whole, Lola and the Boy Next Door deals with some slightly heavier stuff than Anna and the French Kiss did.  Lola’s quirky personality isn’t going to work for some readers, but that’s okay.  While this might not surpass Anna in readers’ esteem, it’s certainly a worthy companion novel.  If I could live in the world of a book, it would probably be this one.  Highly, highly recommended.

Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins.  Dutton: 2011.  Purchased copy.

Book Review: Supernaturally by Kiersten White

Now that Evie finally has what she’s always wanted–normalcy–she’s finding herself kind of bored.  High school is a lot more monotonous than she realized it would be.  Her boyfriend Lend is busy with college, and she finds herself nostalgic for her time spent working with IPCA.  When the organization contacts her for her help again, she says yes.  Evie finds herself at the center of danger as a war between the faeries looms and she seems to be the prize to win.

Kiersten White’s follow-up to last year’s very smart, very funny Paranormalcy has some of the same elements that made the first one work so well.  Evie’s voice is strong as ever, and White casts her story with some vibrant, vivid characters.  However, it also suffers a little from middle-book-syndrome, and I found it harder to connect to this one than I anticipated.

The story moves forward from where the first novel left off, and while readers can pick this one up without having read the first one, it’s going to resonate more strongly with fans of the series.  Even I had trouble remembering what had taken place in the first novel (I read a lot, okay?), and I consider myself a fan of Evie and her shenanigans.  The novel is still a fun, amusing roller coaster ride, though.  It’s good for readers who demand a fast-paced story with lots of humor.

Evie’s voice is still, without a doubt, the best part of the book.  White writes her with a clarity and vibrancy that’s inimitable.  Evie’s struggling with growing up, and that shows here.  White’s trademark wit, self-awareness, and wryness are all present and accounted for.

Even though I didn’t love this one the way I loved its predecessor, I’ll be sure to check out the third volume in the story.  White is a writer to watch, and this series is a refreshing take on the rather tired paranormal romance genre.

Supernaturally by Kiersten White.  HarperTeen: 2011.  Library copy.

(#78) Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

In a not-so-distant future, people in the United States (well, at least in Chicago) are divided up into five groups called factions.  Each faction represents the characteristic the members feel is the most desirable: Candor (honesty), Amity (peace), Dauntless (courage), Abnegation (selflessness), and Erudite (intelligence).  Beatrice has spent her first 16 years in Abnegation with her parents, but at her sorting ceremony, she chooses to become a Dauntless.  Now she must face a dangerous, stressful initiation into a group that is completely foreign to her.

What makes Roth’s debut novel so clever is that she’s created a world in which the reader can’t help but insert their own self into it.  It’s impossible to read Tris’s story and not wonder about which faction you belong in.  I am, without a doubt, a Candor.  Honest to the point of fault (and often in trouble because of it), I value being able to tell the truth above almost all other things.  That being said, as ultimately compelling and readable as Roth’s novel is, there are some serious problems with this book.

The first, and perhaps largest problem with the story is the world-building itself.  While some readers might swallow the concept that the factions were created in an effort to prevent war, nothing about them ever made sense to me as a reader.  It is clear that it’s a system that makes most people relatively unhappy, but what is the incentive to tolerate the system?  The fear of war doesn’t seem to be strong enough to support this.  (Also playing into this is the fear of becoming factionless, which didn’t ever completely make sense to me, either.  Why would the factions allow these people to roam the streets?  How could this not lead to disaster?)

Perhaps even more importantly, there doesn’t seem to be a gray area in Roth’s world.  Tris is Divergent, which means she embodies the characteristics of more than one faction, but don’t we all?  While I could be Candor, I also have characteristics of the other factions.  In this world, it seems that everyone has one virtue and one virtue only, and that just didn’t jive with me.

Of course, all of this is rendered almost mute by allowing teenagers to test and then choose their own faction.  What is the point of both testing AND choosing?  Teenagers are allowed to choose their own faction no matter what their test results are, so why bother testing them in the first place?  Am I over-thinking this?  Probably, but the more I think about it, the more distracting from the story it becomes.

This is not to say that it’s all bad in Roth’s book, though.  She crafts fairly strong characters, particularly in the case of Tris.  Tris is smart and strong, but she also exhibits the melodrama of a teenage girl and often acts as an unreliable narrator, particularly as she becomes more enamored with Four and tunes out the rumblings of dissent amongst the factions.  Her friends are well-drawn as well, and the chemistry between Tris and Four is pretty palpable, too.

Roth’s writing is also stylistically strong.  She’s a good writer, and her surprisingly sparse prose worked well for me.  Her action sequences were descriptive enough to provide detail without detracting from the pacing.  The last fourth of the book was particularly emotionally strong, but it took too long to get there.

Which, of course, brings me to my last point.  Roth’s book is massive, coming in at almost 500 pages.  While it is a relatively quick read, the story takes a long time to get going and noticeably sags in the middle.  Much of the first part of the book is devoted to describing the trials of the initiates, and for too long, Roth depends on daredevil stunts that are largely predictable and more than a little boring.  It is not until near the end, when she explores some high-tech hallucinations that prove to be completely fascinating, that the story finds its footing.  I just wish she’d gotten there sooner.

The first in a planned trilogy, Divergent is best suited for fans of The Hunger Games who are feeling some withdrawal.  It’s clear that this book was crafted hoping to cash in on the popularity of that series, and while it isn’t quite as successful, it still holds a lot of promise.  Here’s to hoping Roth hits the ground running in the second novel and provides some fun, fast entertainment.

Divergent by Veronica Roth.  Harper Collins Children’s Books, 2011.  Library copy. 

 

(#34) Book Review: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

All Evie wants to be is a normal teenager.  She’s obsessed with a TV show that depicts what she believes are normal high school kids, and she pines for a world in which she could have a locker and go to the prom like a normal girl.  Evie isn’t normal, though.  She works for the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA), her ex-boyfriend is a faerie (whose intentions are dubious at best), she’s crushing on a shape-shifter, and she’s the only person she knows who can see through paranormal’s glamours.  When paranormals start dying in record numbers, Evie starts to realize that not only is NOT normal, but that she might be the key to a mysterious prophecy that could alter the world forever.

Although I’m generally not the demographic for supernatural fiction, something about Kiersten White’s debut novel grabbed my attention.  It garnered a lot of attention on the blogosphere when it was published last summer, and while I didn’t race out and read it, the idea of it settled in the back of my mind.  I’ve been in a bit of a reading funk lately, and so I decided to branch out and try new things.  Paranormalcy was one of the new things I tried.  Readers, I’m glad I did, because this was a really fun book.

Although the book is supernatural in theme and content, it’s also grounded in reality.  The character of Evie demonstrates this particularly well.  Even though she is at least a little supernatural, Evie’s desire to be a part of the “normal” world is palpable, made all the more real by White’s clear, competent writing.  Little details, like Evie’s geeking-out over the concept of a locker or her obsession with a popular TV show featuring beautiful teenagers, help add to the credibility of Evie’s character.  White’s ability to create an authentic voice for Evie helps carry the story along.  It’s clear that the author knows these characters well, and it’s equally clear that she loves them.

What sets this book apart from other supernatural-themed YA novels is the humor and self-awareness that White brings to the genre.  Evie’s snark and her persnickety attitude create for some truly funny passages.  Also notable is the fact that White gently subverts the sexy-vampire cliche by having Evie point out (several times) that vampires are corpses.  Little details like this make the book stand out.  In a sea of books that feature dull, lifeless heroines whose sole purpose is to be saved by their male love interest, White’s debut features a strong heroine who can take care of herself, make out with a cute boy, AND save the world in the process.

Despite a little meandering of the plot about halfway through, White’s novel is fast-paced, fun, and funny.  The first in a planned trilogy (with the second title due out at the end of July), this book will leave readers wanting more.  Highly recommended for fans of fantasy (especially urban fantasy), but also recommended for fans of YA in general.  A surprisingly good read.

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White.  Harper Teen: 2010.  Library copy.

(#31) Book Review: We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han

A few years have passed since Conrad ditched Belly and told Jeremiah to basically go for it.  Belly’s done with her first year of college, and she and Jeremiah are still together.  Their relationship isn’t perfect, though, and when Jeremiah proposes to her, she decides to dive in, despite some reservations.  What should be the happiest time of their lives is complicated by the fact that not everyone seems to be all that thrilled with the impending nuptials.  Belly’s mom won’t speak to her, and then Conrad shows up and complicates things further.  It’s time for Belly to make up her mind about the Fisher boys once and for all, but how will she know it’s the right choice?

Getting my hands on an electronic galley of this book a few months before the release date was pretty exciting.  I devoured the first two books in  Han’s Summer Trilogy, and the wait for this third and final book was a little bit painful.  Reading the last chapter of Belly and Conrad and Jeremiah’s story was bittersweet, to say the least.

The good news is that Han is still a really good writer.  She tends to shine the brightest when writing about Conrad, Jeremiah, and Belly’s shared past as children.  These anecdotes were few and far between in this novel, and they were missed.  However, Han’s prose is always pretty, and her descriptions of the beach and the summer house made me ache for summers long past.

Also well done is Han’s consistent characterizations, almost to a fault.  Conrad is still brooding and stoic.  Jeremiah is still charismatic and a little happy-go-lucky.  Taylor is still a shameless flirt.  Belly is still mostly sweet and unbelievably naive, and that’s where the characterization becomes hard for me to swallow.

(MILD SPOILERS AHEAD.)  Belly has finished a year of college and has been with Jeremiah for two years.  She has lived away from home, has made new friends, has gained new experiences, and yet she’s still almost blindingly ignorant about the way the world works.  Her childlike innocence about everything is underscored by the fact that she is still a virgin.  This little tidbit of information was so shocking to me that I had to reread the passage several times.

I realize that Belly’s withholding of her body to Jeremiah is supposed to be indicative of larger problems within their relationship, but I still think it’s weird and unrealistic.  She’s known this boy her whole life and we’re supposed to believe it’s never happened?  No wonder he cheated on her.*

The other problem with Han’s novel is that the love triangle starts to wear thin.  Belly’s drama with Conrad and Jeremiah starts to feel played out, and much of the suspense was killed by the fact that I just wanted her to pick one of them and stick to it.  Belly is still torn between two brothers who are both in love with her (even though she’s not that awesome), and her waffling between the two of them for a third book is a little irritating.

Even though the concept of getting married so young made me uncomfortable (which I think is Han’s intent) Belly’s consistent ability to get between Jeremiah and Conrad was more unsettling for me this time around.  Being caught in a love triangle has its appeal (in theory, at least, although the reality is decidedly less glamorous), but being in a love triangle with two brothers has an ick factor.  Something about it didn’t work for me this time, and it wasn’t as romantic as I would have liked.

Fans of Han’s series will be divided about the ending, because that’s how it goes with love triangles.  To me, it felt like a natural progession, and I don’t think it will shock anyone.  The last few lines (the entire epilogue, actually) are especially beautiful, and they evoke that ache within readers for summer for the ocean, and for youth.

*This was a joke, people.  No one who decides to wait for sex deserves to be cheated on.

We’ll Always Have Summer hit shelves on April 26, 2011.  (Or May 3, depending on the source you consult.)

We’ll Always Have Summer by Jenny Han.  Simon Pulse, 2011. Electronic Galley accepted for review from publisher

(#23) Book Review: The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan

Annah’s life has been hard.  Since leaving her twin sister Abigail in the Forest of Hands and Teeth when they were very young, Annah has survived the Horde overtaking the Dark City, a bad run-in with a pit of barbed wire, and the loss of her only companion Elias to the Recruiters.  She has spent her life waiting for Elias to return, but all that changes when she meets Catcher, who is just as broken as she is.  As the two fight to reunite with Elias and Abigail (Gabry), she must decide whether it is better to live in the broken world or to escape via death.

The third and final novel in Carrie Ryan’s solid, suspenseful zombie series is full of action and relentless pacing and will leave most fans very satisfied.  Where Ryan’s second novel in the series faltered somewhat, this one redeems itself, because instead of focusing too much on a love triangle, The Dark and Hollow Places focuses on Annah and her desire to stay alive and be free.  With the character of Annah, Ryan gets back to one of her strengths so exemplified in the first book, The Forest of Hands and Teeth: a tough girl who is strong-willed, smart, and complex.

Ryan excels at creating characters whose pain is palpable.  Both Catcher and Annah are people who are broken in some way because of what life has given them, and the fact that they are able to find solace in each other’s company is so clear and so well-written that I could almost feel it in the room with me.  Annah is a girl who has suffered a great deal of loss and agony in her life, but she doesn’t let it define her, and she doesn’t give up, even when it seems there’s no chance for survival.

It is also worth noting that Ryan has a talent for creating a suspenseful atmosphere.  Writing long sequences of action that are not tedious is difficult even in a skilled writer’s hands, and Ryan manages to create and sustain suspense throughout the book.  Although the final third is undoubtedly more exciting than the beginning of the book, Ryan’s ability to build tension is commendable.  I literally couldn’t put the book down after the halfway mark simply because I needed to find out what would happen next.

The juxtaposition between horror and violence with moments of love and happiness is done particularly well.  Although this is perhaps the darkest book in the series (in more ways than one), it is also the one with the most hope and the most light.  Some of the moments in this book are so beautiful that it almost hurts to think about them.  That’s powerful writing, folks.

Highly, highly recommended to fans of Ryan’s previous works, as well as to fans of zombie stories, dystopian tales, and readers in general.

The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan, Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2011.  Library copy.

(#14) Book Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Amy is frozen alongside her parents and placed as cargo upon the spaceship Godspeed.  The journey is supposed to last 300 years, but when Amy is awakened 50 years early, she finds herself aboard a ship where life is very different from the one she’s known.  The spaceship is run by a tyrannical dictator who has spun a web of lies to keep the ship’s inhabitants calm and complacent.  When someone on the ship starts unplugging other frozen people on the ship and leaving them for dead, she realizes that her awakening wasn’t accidental, and she has to work to figure out who’s behind it before it’s too late.

Much has been made about the fact that true-blue science fiction is a rarity in the YA world these days, and that Beth Revis’s Across the Universe may exactly the cure for that dearth of genre fiction.  Many people are fed up with the paranormal romances that crowd shelves these days, and are looking for other outlets to explore.  In that way, Revis’s debut novel offers a fresher perspective, for sure.  However, the final product isn’t quite as great as it could be.

The novel is told in alternating perspectives between Amy Martin, frozen-girl-wonder, and Elder, the future leader of the ship.  Because Revis is a talented writer, she is able to pull off this gimmick.  A less technically skilled writer would struggle with this narrative choice and the story would flounder as a result, but Revis keeps the pace moving along at a clip and the plotting is tight.  It’s a long book, but most readers will devour it in large chunks (or even one sitting) because the suspense builds effectively enough to keep readers engaged.

Also worth mentioning is Revis’s ability to create a subtle world of horrors on the spaceship.  Her slow unveiling of the seedy underbelly of the ship’s goings on builds tension and disgust within the reader, and it makes for a compelling story.  Instead of pulling from other authors who have covered the dystopian genre, Revis manages to go deeper within her own story, carving out a space in the genre and creating a complex world where there are no easy answers. However, there are things that didn’t quite work for me, either.

The voices of Amy and Elder were well-developed, but Elder was the more interesting and complex of the two characters.  Amy seemed a little too every-girl for me, and her blandness made her passages less interesting than Elder’s.

Not every part of the story gelled for me, either.  There were some issues with characters and realistic actions.  These moments required a suspension of belief, which I always have trouble swallowing, but I understand why Revis took the liberties she did in order to make the story compelling and exciting. The book is set to be part of a trilogy, and while I’m sure I’ll pick up the next volume, I don’t think I’ll be in a terrible rush to do so.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis. Razorbill: 2011.  Library copy.

(#7) Book Review: Delirium by Lauren Oliver

In Lena Holoway’s world, people are cured at eighteen.  Once a person turns eighteen, they no longer have to worry about contracting the deliria that takes hold of one’s entire being and consumes them from the inside out.  The government’s eradication of love has made for a safer society, and Lena can’t wait to have the cure herself, because her life will be happy, safe, and controlled.  But with something like three months before her scheduled operation, Lena falls in love, and everything changes.

There’s a problem inherent in having your debut novel be one of the best books of the year: when your second novel comes out, there are a lot of high expectations for it to deliver.  If it doesn’t, the fall from grace is all the harsher.  While Oliver’s second novel is still good, it doesn’t come close to touching last year’s excellent Before I Fall.

What Oliver does well is create prose that is beautiful and haunting.  She has a way of setting a scene and capturing moments between characters that is breath-taking.  There were several times when this reader stopped and reread sentences because they were just so pretty.  So yeah, Oliver has the technical skill to tell a story.  But the fact that she can write makes the weak spots in the novel all the more glaringly obvious.

The first problem that I had as a reader was the plausibility of such a society.  We are told that the cure was well-received, even in its early stages.  We are told that people lined up to be cured from the dangers associated with love, but we are not told why.  Lena’s society is not so different from the one in which we live today: it’s a society based on similar values, and it’s one in which Christianity (Judeo-Christian) has a strong influence.  One of the building blocks of the religious influence is the general concept of love, which is seen as a good thing–so what happened to make people fear it so much?  There is no inciting event, no terrible tragedy that would have coerced or scared people into wanting this cure.  So how did it happen?

From this pretty big question stems other ones.  The world-building that Oliver engages in isn’t enough to make me feel like it’s a truly dystopian society.  For as long as the novel is, very little is spent on giving us details about the world in which Lena lives.  There’s a curfew for those who aren’t cured, and there’s some segregation of the sexes, but that’s pretty much all we’re given.  I couldn’t help but want more insight into the daily life of Portland.  The information dump at the beginning of the novel is a little clunky, and when compared to how few breadcrumbs readers are thrown in the rest of the novel, it’s unsatisfying.

Finally, there’s the issue of characterization.  While Lena herself is perfectly fine as a character (maybe a little too everygirl-ish), Alex, her love interest, is never fully developed.  He’s from the Wilds, and he likes poetry (though I’m not sure that he’s as smart as he thinks he is, because I think he misses the point of Romeo + Juliet), but other than that, he’s bland, bland, bland.  What are his motivations?  What does he want?  Who is he?  Why are these questions that I’m still asking after finishing a 400+ page book?

I realize that this is the beginning of a planned trilogy, and it’s possible that Oliver is simply setting the stage for the next two books.  But I couldn’t help but feel that this book was overly-long for something that left me feeling as if I didn’t really know the world nor its characters.  The last third of the book is the strongest when it comes to pacing, and the ending is a cliff-hanger that will ensure that readers will come back to see what happens in the next installment, but this reader will enter the next book with some reservations.

Delirium hits shelves on February 1st, 2011.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver.  HarperTeen, February, 2011.  ARC accepted from publisher.

Book Review: Matched by Ally Condie

Cassia Reyes lives in a future where the Society governs everything.  Her world is sterile, orderly, and peaceful.  The Society is entrusted with making the decisions to keep its citizens safe, happy, and complacent.  When people turn seventeen, they can choose to be Matched to someone else.  On the night of Cassia’s Matching ceremony, she is thrilled when she’s paired with her longtime friend Xander.  But then Cassia sees another face flash across the screen, and it’s another boy she knows.  Ky Markham’s face appears for only a fraction of a second, but Cassia cannot stop thinking about him.  Will she choose to follow the path demanded of her by the Society and her family, or will she follow her heart and break ties with everything she’s ever believed?

Ally Condie’s debut novel has garnered a lot of attention for several reasons.  It made headlines when she sold the three-book deal to Disney for seven figures.  It’s also been heavily-promoted by the publisher, which means that book bloggers have been touting the novel for a while now.  To say that there’s a lot of buzz surrounding the book feels like an understatment; its presence in the blogosphere has become almost ubiquitous.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing, because the book has been hyped up to the point where it’s destined to fail to meet every reader’s expectations.

That being said, it’s a strong enough debut on the part of Condie.  Condie excels especially at building the world around Cassia–it’s sterile and orderly, and the people are passive and complacent.  Writing in the first person present, there’s a certain lilt to Condie’s prose that is often almost poetic.  Cassia’s world is constructed well enough that the oppression feels palpable and draws the reader in.

It’s clear that Condie has drawn from other dystopian novels, but her story remains strong on its own as well.  The world in which Cassia lives is full of mystery that no one seems to be questioning.  The three pills that citizens of the Society are required to carry around add to the questions the reader has about what is happening.  Limiting the narration to Cassia’s point of view makes the reader feel as though they are also a spectator who is left mostly in the dark.  There are hints that all is not well in the outer provinces, but neither Cassia nor the reader ever gets confirmation of this.

Cassia’s struggle to figure out what she wants is compelling enough.  As she finds herself drawn to Ky, her beliefs about the Society and the way of life she has always known begin to falter.  Her fierce loyalty to her family is believable and adds tension to the story.  Cassia’s struggle to please her parents, to toe the line, to not make waves was something that I was able to identify with, and yet I also understood her growing desire to make decisions for herself, to stand up or at least resist the Society.

What didn’t work for me was the love triangle Cassia found herself in with Xander and Ky.  Maybe I’m getting tired of love triangles in YA, or maybe the cynic in me is irritated at the idea of a girl having not one but two perfect love interests, but something about this particular triangle didn’t work for me.  Neither boy seemed particularly alluring, and while I understood that Xander and Cassia had a history that informed their relationship (as well as the mathematical certainty of the Match), there wasn’t any passion there.  Cassia’s relationship with Ky was more of the same for me: Ky was so closed off that I never got a sense of who he was, and so I didn’t really care about their developing relationship.

It’s impossible for me to talk about this futuristic dystopian trilogy with a love triangle without bringing up another futuristic dystopian trilogy with a love triangle (sort of): The Hunger Games.  Part of me feels that The Hunger Games was more successful with regards to the love triangle simply because it wasn’t the center of the story.  Katniss’s decision about Peeta or Gale was never the main event.  Neither boy was her reason for being, and I can’t help but feel that Matched suffers a little because both boys completely inform Cassia’s world.  It makes her a weaker heroine, and that bugs me.

Some readers are going to take issue with how sterile the characters are, and perhaps how passive and static they seem.  But it’s my opinion that this was intentional on the part of Condie.  Having sterile, passive characters helps drive home the point of the novel: these people are frozen in their lives, under complete control of the Society.  Tiny cracks begin to appear in the fabric of the community as the book progresses, and the reader begins to see the emotions and humanity underneath the facade of calm and order, but it takes time for that to happen.  Patient readers will be rewarded, because this book sets up a riveting story that is sure to deliver in the next two installments.

Book Review: It’s Not Summer Without You

Last summer, Belly’s long-awaited dream came true: Conrad kissed her.  Her summers at the summer house with her mom and brother and Susannah and Conrad and Jeremiah were the constant in her life, the thing she looked forward to most.  Conrad noticing her and reciprocating her feelings for him was the ultimate moment of her life.  But now Susannah is gone, and the families aren’t meeting at the summer house.  Belly struggles with her first summer at home, pining for the boys and the ocean.  When Jeremiah calls her and tells her that Conrad’s skipped out of summer school and can’t be found, the two go off in search of him–and themselves.

Han’s second book in the Summer trilogy is still a compulsively readable book, but it doesn’t live up to its predecessor, The Summer I Turned Pretty.  While the first book was evocative of the nostalgia of summer, this one flounders a bit.  Instead of stretching the story over an entire summer, Han chose to set this novel over the course of about a week.  Although this makes the story move at a much faster pace, it’s lacking some of the stronger plot points of the previous novel.

There are good things about this novel.  Han is an extremely good writer, and her technical skill is present here.  She manages to get inside the head of both Belly and Jeremiah, adding dimension to the characters, delving deeper than even the first novel managed to get.  Han is also skillful in demonstrating the process of grief for both of Susannah’s boys: Jeremiah’s sorrow and Conrad’s shutting down are both present and palpable on the page.  Indeed, the book’s strongest moments are when Han deals with the complexities of family.

However, too much of the story gets bogged down by the love triangle.  Belly’s character is so malleable that in this book she waffles back and forth between the brothers so much that readers are in danger of getting whiplash.  Her indecision over Conrad and Jeremiah begins to grate, especially because Conrad crosses over from bad-boy-with-layers to a complete jerk face loser.  The fact that Belly is unswerving in her devotion to Conrad isn’t believable, and it isn’t fun to read.  Her decisions were questionable at best but were more often a bit cringe-worthy.

This isn’t to say that I won’t pick up the conclusion to the trilogy when it comes out next May.  It’s possible that Han will figure it out and really deliver with the third novel.  This book is still recommended to fans of the first, but consider yourself warned: it probably won’t live up to the lovely first novel.