Matched

In May I was asked to host bookclub. We discussed the book Matched by Ally Condie. I had a stroke of genius and I came up with a few fun ideas. It was fun to get things ready. (I am not normally creative like this.) This will probaby make more sense if you've read the book.

I sent the bookclub members the following email:

Attention:
You have been assigned to attend Book Club during your free rec hours this Thursday evening. Disregard any previous free rec assignments you may have received for this time. The Society has determined that this is the optimum free rec activity for you because (1) You are awesome, (2) Your data indicates that you have attended and enjoyed book club in the past, and (3) There will possibly be pie in honor of Citizen Samuel Reyes, recently deceased. 

We remind you that missing your assigned free rec activity without a valid excuse may constitute an Infraction. 

Your free rec activity will begin at 8:00 pm. Please take the air train to Citizen Tanner's apartment in Baity Borough or park your car in the S11 lot and walk up the stairs. Upon arrival please send Citizen Tanner a portal communication as only authorized persons are permitted to enter Baity Borough apartments. You may bring your official artifact. 

Wishing you optimum results,
Marcelaine Tanner

I tried to match the language and tone of official messages in the book and throw in some references to things in the book.

It was a crazy day, but I did manage to make pie by taking a shortcut and using refrigerated pie crusts. I have always made mine from scratch in the past except for buying a few graham cracker crusts, but I was pleasantly surprised by how well the refrigerated pie crusts turned out. It made things a lot simpler because all I had to do was lay the uncooked crusts into the pans and add filling. We had a razzle dazzle pie and a pumpkin pie and they were very yummy.

I also put together some little bags with significant items from the book: a scrap of green fabric (Cassia was given a scrap from the green dress she wore at her match banquet), the poems Cassia's grandparents had hidden in her artifact (I ripped the edges down to size and crumpled the papers so they would look old), and three "pills" (skittles) like the ones all citizens in the Society are expected to keep with them at all times.

We had an interesting discussion. I actually finished the rest of the series before our bookclub met, and to be honest I thought the other two books were just okay. In the second book all they did was walk around and be emotional and in the third book the plot was very interesting but the writing was way too flowery and poetic for my taste and I didn't think she tied the story together as completely as she could have. The characters were kind of flat, and when Cassia stuck sticks up her sleeves and pants and said it felt weird I had to throw the book down in disgust, because, duh, normal adults don't put sticks in their clothes, so of course it felt weird. But there were a lot of interesting things to discuss about the book and of course we also enjoyed chatting about other things.

For some reason I rarely have friends over, so the idea that Mom was having a party was completely foreign to the kids. They kept asking questions trying to figure out what it meant that I had lots of friends coming over without their kids. When Ann Marie saw me setting the treats out on the table she excitedly went to get herself a plate and cried real tears when she had to go to bed without pie. (There were plenty of leftovers, so the kids got some the next day.)