Book Reading

[beccastareyes]

So, occasionally people tweet 'free book' contests, and I entered one. And won a book. Which is nice -- new authors to try.

So, right now, I'm about 50 pages into Matched, and pretty much have the premise.

So Matched's setting reads like a more urban version of The Giver. Basically, in the protagonist's great-grandparents' time, a bunch of people decided 'Hey, wouldn't it be fun to strip as much free will from life as possible in the name of removing human suffering? XD'. The major difference is that, unlike The Giver where the world before isn't often talked about -- the town almost seems to have no past and no future, just an ever-changing now -- the protagonists in Matched are explicitly taught 'look how we made things better XD'.

Anyway, pretty much when you're 17, you get to decide if you want to be Single or Matched*, with the only supposed perk of Matching being that Matched couples** can sire/bear children together. OTOH, there's all this propaganda about how your Match is both incredibly suited for you to have healthy and happy offspring, but also the best fit for your personality.

Anyway, Cassia, Protagonist-girl, is a romantic-minded 17-year-old-girl who gets matched to her childhood friend, which is a Big Deal since it's rare that, in a network of cities, that your Match is someone even in your town, let alone someone you know. Anyway, the next day, when she examines her new fiance's dating profile information, briefly another young man's face appears. Later, while she's hanging out with friends, someone from City Hall tells her that it was just a minor mistake -- someone had played a prank and put in someone not eligible for Matching. Basically, her neighbor, Ky's, biological parents screwed up so badly that he's ineligible to reproduce, so can't marry. And don't tell anyone, because it's kind of a stigma.

So, we have a central conflict. Cassia now has her childhood friend/crush/fiance in an arranged marriage, but also knows something is not right in her perfect little world. And she's portrayed as contrary enough to actually poke at it.

Now, the part of me that analyzes stories figures that this is trying to set up a Ky-Cassia-Xander love triangle. Which... if the theme is 'free-spirited human versus society that robs all choice from its members', doesn't work for me.

I figure you either got two themes going when you set up 'trade choice for optimal happiness' and then break it. Either you get the 'Captain Kirk' or the 'Eve's Choice', both of which are kind of related.

1. Captain Kirk is based on what the good Captain does to any AI he encounters (besides 'seduces it'). Basically he tends to confuse it with human emotions so much that it breaks down. So, you have the idea that you fundamentally can't quantify human happiness any any attempt will eventually fail.

2. Eve's Choice is a Bible reference. Because we're classy and all. So, you have the Garden of Eden, where everything is perfect and nothing Adam and Eve can do -- except one thing -- actually matters. A lot of gnostic Christians IIRC didn't see the whole apple thing as 'suffer, because you disobeyed God', but as a choice to have choices. Which lead to suffering, because choices don't count when they won't do anything to you, apparently. So, anyway, the idea is that for humans to matter, we need to make choices, even if they lead to crummy outcomes. So, even if the computer can quantify human happiness and find the best outcome, it shouldn't.

So, Xander is hosed by this, since he's the one that Society wants, and any Dystopia without a downer ending usually goes with 'Fuck society! I do what I want!' (and the ones with downer endings involve Society's jack-booted heel coming down and crushing you then). OTOH, Ky is still deliberately singled out as 'Look at this one!', which gives me a bad taste in my mouth, since Cassia still isn't actually looking for anything, just given a dichotomy -- 'good guy' or 'bad boy'.

Now, what I want out of this book to have a satisfying ending is an attack on the One True Love and "Love -> Marriage -> (Biological) Babies" tropes in our culture. Because they work for some and not for others, but our society seems to treat these as the paragon for everyone. Folks shouldn't have to pick at seventeen whether they want kids and a monogamous partner. They should get more choices than 'single for life' (or at least, no relationship legally recognized) and 'het spouse and kids'. I don't want Cassia's choice to be Boy 1 or Boy 2, because it still buys into the whole thing.

What do I want? I want someone to address poly folks, or people who want kids but no spouse, or people who want a same-sex spouse and kids, or people who want some legal recognition for lovers (regardless of sex) without kids. I want some idea that maybe you shouldn't be asking 17 year olds to make major life choices, no take-backs or do-overs.

So, really, I want the two guys to end up together while Cassia leads a revolution, only to discover at 30 that she's ready now for kids and become Xander and Ky's kids' cool stepmom.

I don't expect to get this. I expect 'Sticking it to the Man' will be 'wearing my cap backward picking Ky, not Xander'. But I remain hopeful.
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* The Society loves Capital Letters. We are lucky I am not starting to do a Computer from Paranoia impression.

** All of which are opposite-sex pairs. More on that later.