Perfected by Kate Jarvik Birch: Critics (me) say that this book is "stunningly bad"

 

Publication Date: July 1st, 2014

Read: February 3rd, 2024

Rating: 1/5 stars

goodreads synopsis

It’s amazing how I managed to entirely wipe this book from my mind, and yet when I saw it on Kindle Unlimited, I felt a glimmer of recognition nonetheless. Because I read this book. I don’t know when I read it, or even if I finished it at the time, but I know that I read this book.

And now, I have read it again. 

Great news! It’s bad.

The premise of this book is: What if there were some congressmen who had campaigned tirelessly to make it legal to keep genetically engineered petite teenage girls as pets? Specifically so they could abuse these girls with absolutely no consequences? Wouldn’t that be messed up? 

And then the plot of this book is: Wearing pretty dresses, eating lentils, and sitting on the edge of the pool & yearning for literally the first human boy you’ve ever laid eyes on.

Crossed by Ally Condie: Yeah, Too Many Canyons

Don't ask why this is the paperback cover and my other review was the hardback cover...I don't have answers

Publication Date:

Read: January 7th - 8th

Rating: 3/5 stars

goodreads

I think it's fascinating how all three books in this series have such similar average ratings on Goodreads. But Crossed has the lowest average, because we all agree it's the worst Matched book.

Honestly, Crossed started off surprisingly strongly. I was like, "Maybe I was wrong about this book being boring, and all about the characters wandering around a canyon?" But then we got to the canyon and started wandering around, and...well...

There are spoilers for Matched and Crossed ahead, if you're still trying to avoid spoilers for either of these books that have been out for over a decade!

Matched by Ally Condie: A Pleasant Reread

Let's not pretend this cover isn't iconic

Publication Date: November 30th, 2010

Read: January 4th - 5th

Rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded up to 4 stars on goodreads, where this review is also posted)

I had fun rereading this!

My journey with Matched is as follows: I read it at some point as a teenager, probably in high school. I enjoyed it but definitely thought the second book dragged and the third one tried to cram in too much plot to compensate. From then on, I didn't think about it that much. I was surprised to hear people talk about Matched as one of the worst YA dystopias, because...c'mon guys. There are wayyyy worse ones out there. The one where the "dystopian" conflict is that people take nutrition pills instead of eating? The one about virtual reality that completely fails to make compelling commentary about virtual reality?

The problem is, no one but me read Hungry or Unplugged. But even among POPULAR YA dystopias, I feel like Matched is better than, like, Delirium, where love is illegal and everyone gets brain surgery to remove their capacity for love, because This Will Make Society Better. Delirium's second book was much worse than Matched's. If you're going to write a second book where nothing of import happens, I'd rather it be set in a canyon than in a random underground room, y'know?