castiellans

I'm not quite sure what the rate this book; coming so fresh off finishing it (like two hours ago), I still haven't had a lot of time to really gather my thoughts on it. For now, I am giving it what is my default rating of three stars, which either means a.) I liked it or b.) I have no clue how to rate this thing. I think this is a bit of both.I didn't expect to like Matched at all, to be quite honest, just because I often find myself on the verge of jumping out a window when reading about love triangles (they've killed many a good book series for me) and also because the main focus of this book is really the romance, and I am not at all a romance fan. I like my romance with a little something else, as more of a subplot than a main plot. But literally the whole plot of this fucker depends on the romance, on whether or not Cassia is going to stick with Xander or choose Ky.And honestly, when it got right down to it, I didn't mind that because I didn't find myself wanting to use either Xander or Ky as a human sacrifice in some sort of ritual killing for the Book Gods. I don't care who Cassia chooses, even though I know in the end she'll probably pick Ky because it's clear she likes him a hell of a lot more than she likes Xander (unless she just enjoys sticking a figurative middle finger up at society and using her love for him as a big "Fuck you!" but based on what I know about this girl I don't believe that's the case at all).Now, Cassia annoyed me at times. I feel like she makes maybe the shittiest choices of any character I've read as of late, even though I know she didn't know she basically gave Ky a death sentence while she was in the actual process of doing it so she can't be held entirely accountable for it. I also think she could have gone a bit lighter on Xander, maybe not used the word "love" when referring to another man (even though it's true) because damn if I don't know the sting of hearing you're somebody's second choice. IT SUCKS.Through the whole book, I was sort of waiting for Cassia to do something, to wake up and realize "Hey! Something isn't right here! I need to get off my ass and see what I can do about it!" But instead she pines for Ky, learns to write, and makes some bad decisions, all while she could be, you know, doing something productive.Now, I don't think all of Cassia's choices were bad. I think she made some very good ones, some very brave ones, and maybe those make up for the stupid ones. I was proud of her for crushing that red tablet near the end instead of taking it, although I knew it hurt her to remember what had happened and that she had been the cause. I just felt like, somewhere along the way, she could have done something MORE. Yeah, it's an oppressive society watching her every move, but it's also a fictional book and I have suspension of disbelief that goes pretty far thanks to season seven of Supernatural.There was a point when I threw a pretzel at this book out of sheer frustration because I felt like it wasn't going anywhere. It seemed like I read "The next day on the hill, Ky said..." a thousand times in a row, like that was all that was happening. And I guess that's the point when I really just wanted to shout, "Do something, Cassia!" But you know what? She never did. And I understand why she didn't, because they live in a society where you can't. But like I said, my understanding that this is a fictional world and the suspension of disbelief that cheese-eating Leviathans and Dick Roman have given me would have allowed me to believe that, maybe, she could have.(^This is Chet, that cheese-eating Leviathan I was talking about.)There's nothing in this book that I feel as if I haven't read before in some form or another, though I hate to title-drop so I'm not going there (it looks like everyone else has already done it for me anyway lol). However, there was an element of Matched that kept me reading; I've had it sitting on my bookshelf since the day it was released, but I've only now really picked it up with the resolve to read it, and I did so in a day.Will I read the next book? I don't know yet. I thought, when I first finished the book, that I absolutely had to. But after finishing this review, seeing all my thoughts collected neatly like this, now I've got to say that I really don't know. I may just wait until the last book comes out and buy them both then, or read a few reviews to see if I think the next book will be just as good or better.Overall, not what I was expecting, but that's a good thing, I promise.Chet the Cheese-Eating Leviathan Approves This Message