Winners

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to welcome Matched into the world! I'm pleased to announced that the two winners are:

Sylvia sylvia_uy4(at)yahoo(Dot)com

and

Amanda amandatheaker(at)gmail(dot)com

Congrats!!

Q&A with Ally Condie

I love it when author friends stop by and indulge the weirdness of my brain! Here's my Q&A with Ally Condie, author of Matched.

The opening scene of your book describes the matching event, and Cassia has chosen a green dress to wear (which is also on the cover). Green is my favorite color and I love that dress – the story intimates that her choice of color says something about her, but what made you decide her dress should be green?

*I wanted Cassia’s dress to be green for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is very superficial—I wanted it to match her eyes! More importantly, I also liked the symbolism of the color green and its traditional connections with growth, spring, etc. And finally, I liked that it had a connection with the green tablet, which is important to the story.

It’s fascinating that culture has been limited to the 100 lists – did you actually create a list of each 100 books, songs, etc. If so, what was that like?

*I didn’t create the lists in their entirety. I do know a few items on each list. The list the Society created would be very different from my own personal list, so it would be a little daunting to create theirs. They wouldn’t include anything subversive, they would limit the diversity of the list, etc.

In the Society, it’s dangerous to be exceptional. Do you think our world ever tries to limit originality?

*Yes, I do. I think we have a lot of cultural ideas about what beauty and success should look like and we like people to fit those molds. However, we do also live in this time of unparalleled freedom of expression, so that is pretty amazing.

This is totally random, but does the Society allow people to have pets?

*No, they don’t! And you’re the first person to notice that! I thought it was this sort of creepy thing that there are no animals on the streets or in the yards, etc. It’s just another way the Society exercises control. The people in the Farmlands have farm animals, but there are no actual pets.

If Cassia were to step into our world for a day, what do you think she would be the most surprised by?

*I think she would be most surprised by the way we can listen to and write and read whatever we want, and she would also be surprised by how much we take that for granted.

I’m dying for more of the story – what are you working on now and what can I bribe you with to get it early (chocolate?)?

*I’m working on the sequel right now. I’ve been working on the sequel for a year! I wish I could write more quickly. But I’m like you in that the story can take over my mind (when I’m not with the kids). I was leaving to go write earlier today and I backed into my husband’s car with my car. He was thrilled. I really need to finish this book. ;)

But you could possibly bribe me with a copy of Wolfsbane. ;)

Ha! Thanks, Ally :)

Thanks for letting me stop by, Andrea! And huge congrats on the success of Nightshade!

Thanks to Ally for being here and thanks also to Penguin, which is giving away two copies of Matched to blog readers. Just leave a comment below and you will be entered in the giveaway!!!

Welcome, Ally Condie!!

Did you get Matched yet?

If you aren't motivated enough, here's a guest post from the amazing Ally herself!! Stop by Friday to see her answers to my questions (and for a chance to win a shiny new copy of Matched!)

Andrea, thank you for letting me visit your blog! And hello, Andrea’s readers! It’s very fun to be posting here.

There were many, many things I loved about Nightshade, but one of the things I adored was the setting. I loved the way the physical world informed what happened to Calla and her pack. I loved that she was such a part of her environment and that territory was so important.

I am a sucker for a good setting. For atmosphere. Particularly for an atmosphere that can both scare me and make me feel at home. This was what I was aiming for in Matched. A place that felt real but also had undercurrents of something wrong, something strange.

I think part of the reason I’m so intrigued by setting is that I’ve had the good fortune to live in places that have influenced me deeply. I spent the first eighteen years of my life in the red rock country of Southern Utah, a place that to me is still the most beautiful on earth. I spent a semester abroad in London, which is, to my mind, the most perfect big city in the world (with, perhaps, the exception of Seattle, my husband’s hometown). And later I lived in Ithaca, New York, which is lush and green and full of rolly hills. Now I live in northern Utah, which has mountains that take your breath away. I know I’ve only lived in a handful of places when compared with other people—but I’ve loved every place I’ve lived.

And I think, in a way, that’s what we’re looking for in stories. To make a place where people want to live, even if it’s just for the time that they’re reading the book. Even if the place is eerie or strange or different, it’s where we want to be for a little while, watching, learning. Of course, without characters to care about (like Calla! And Shay!) a setting is still just a setting.

So, I hope the characters in Matched are ones that draw you into their somewhat creepy world—and I hope you are able to root for them the way we all root for Calla and Shay! (We are all rooting for Calla and Shay, right? I know, I know. Ren is pretty hot.) ;)

Thanks, Andrea!

Matched

This week I'm delighted to feature the amazing author, Ally Condie, and her novel Matched - which hits stores TOMORROW (Tuesday, November 30!)

If you haven't already heard fabulous things about this novel, I'd be surprised. I'm here to offer yet more praise.

The novel opens to Cassia's evening at her matching ceremony. At this event she'll be told by the Society who her ideal mate is. The Society knows everything about her and everyone else in her life: who she'll marry, what her work we'll be, where she should live - everything.

Matched is a dystopian YA unlike any other I've read. It's quiet. Unlike the noise and blood of Hunger Games (and don't get me wrong - I adore the noise and blood of that series), Matched carries its readers along with lyrical prose but you soon realize the lullaby being sung to you is a bittersweet one at best and at worst will kill you as soon as your eyes fall shut.

It's this surprising mixture of beauty and danger that steals your breath through Matched at moments when you least expect it. Ally Condie has created an extraordinary world both fascinating and horrifying.

Go pick it up tomorrow!

Ally will be on the blog later this week to talk about Matched and to answer the zany questions I threw at her. Stop back to say hello :)