This was my first YA verse novel, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the format. The writing style is clean and engaging, and the story moves quickly while still hitting the emotional beats it needs to. The book kept me invested throughout, but the ending didn’t land as strongly for me. The final chapters feel rushed and could have used more space to fully flesh out the resolution. Still, the premise is compelling, and the overall reading experience was a good one.

A page-turner that would be highly appealing to young women and fans of pop dystopians of the 2000's and 2010's, like Hunger Games or Divergent. The writing style is purposefully structured to reach reluctant reading audiences, by use of shorter sentences and simpler vocabulary (as mentioned in the book description, referencing "hi-lo").

A quick and interesting read! I will always be up for reading a new take on the concept of different systems being used to assign soulmates. This read almost like a YA verse version of The One by John Marrs, and I really enjoyed exploring this concept through a different lens! Also, as a queer person, I like that it's very queer-normative - there was no "this matches each girl with a boy blah blah blah" it had nuance and being queer was just another option a person could tick without there being drama surrounding it specifically! I would absolutely read more from this author :)

I really enjoyed the premise of this book. I loved the characters and how their thoughts and feelings were shown in an empathetic and logical way. I loved the message behind this story.
I personally found the layout distracting, but I understand that it is helpful and necessary for those that need it. I think this would make a GREAT graphic novel!

Overall, this was an easy, quick read with an interesting and enjoyable plot.

Thank you to NetGalley, Rosen Publishing Group, West 44 Books, and Anna Lindwasser for the opportunity to read The Soulmate Project in exchange for an honest review.

The Soulmate Project is a HiLo novel-in-verse with a poetic style that tells the story in a less-is-more type of way. I enjoyed the craft, and the dialogue was one of the key factors developing characterization in this work.

Imagine a world where you are required to fill out a match profile so that an artificial intelligence can pair you with your soul mate. This is the person you must spend the rest of your life with, even if you had a significant other prior to the soul mate ceremony. If one does not comply or gets caught fornicating with someone who is not their registered pair, they are sent to jail.

This is the world eighteen-year-old Delphine lives in. From her first-person perspective, the reader is offered a story in a near-future setting (or even slightly dystopian, based on the control element). Del and her boyfriend do their best to fill out their profiles in a way that will bring them to be each other's perfect matches, so the soul mate algorithm will pair them together. But alas, they are not meant to be. As they each try to maintain their relationship, they are required to get to know their soulmate's at a camp, at risk of jail time.

As one might expect, this could easily turn into a rebellion. How can a computer have any notion of what two human beings should be together. There is so much about individuality and taking away from one's choice of love that make this novel a frightening possibility that may be encountered in the future. Can you imagine it? Not having free choice to love? Love is one of the driving forces of what it means to be human!

An enjoyable and too-spooky novel in it's technology and near-future elements. I highly recommend for teen readers or even an older audience who still wonders if their soul mate is out there somewhere...

The concept of AI determining your true soulmate instead of choosing a partner yourself is what drew me to this story. I had no clue it wouldn’t be a classic type of story, but a story fully told in verse-style. It’s unique, that’s for sure. For me personally, it made it a little less engaging because it didn’t go fully in depth of the concept BUT that didn’t take away from the story. It was refreshing and just something different!
(3.5 stars for me)

Thank you so much to West 44 Books/ Rosen Publishing and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

I loved the dystopian world, the concept of how the world has changed to make a robot read information about people and pair them up, seeing they have found their soulmates. I really liked the concept of it and how utterly flawed the whole system actually was.

I honestly wasn’t much of a fan of our protagonist Del, she wasn’t a nice character, I just found her rude and utterly irritating the whole way through. She didn’t actually care about Tobias at all, she just wanted him to be hers and prove the system was flawed. Then she was able to use him as an example to fix the mistakes the robot made in pairing them up. I really wasn’t invested with most of the characters, but I did like Phoebe out of all of them, she was adorable, bubbly and still so innocent.

I really liked the dystopian setting, the forced love and the reality of who they did truly love, how many mistakes the robots made. It was amazing how highly realistic the system was with the robots being given power over everyone’s lives.

The Soulmate Project is told in verse. I was surprised and impressed with how easy it made the read. It explores a variety of themes and have diverse characters. It's a fast read that can be done in under a few hours.

This book is set in a dystopian future in which AI is used to connect 18 year olds with a romantic partner. The government assigns partners because people are no longer allowed to find love on their own.

Delphine thinks she can challenge the system and manipulate it so that her and her boyfriend Tobias can be matched to one another.

When their plans fails and they are assigned to different people Delphine and Tobias began to question, explore and discover who they are.

If you love the Matched series by Ally Condie this book is for you.

Thank you to Netgalley & West44 books for the ARC. This is a quick little read with a message of the downside of Al & true love. With the story being so short, I feel like the character development is lacking. We are quickly introduced to characters and don't learn much about them. I did think it was interesting that the book is laid out like poetry even though it doesn't rhyme. It made reading quick and easy, and it's a unique take. I think this book deals with relevant topics and issues with us growing up with Al, algorithms, and dating apps and the impact they have and could have on our societies.
Leaves you to think about something.

REVIEW
The cover is an eye-catching purple and blue shades giving the cityscape a night time feel. Theres also a pearlescent almost translucent heart in the centre of the cover with the title The Soulmate Project within it. The author’s name is above the heart positioned near the top of the book which initially threw me as I always look to the bottom of the book for authors names. On the whole I like the cover and the heart combined with the title would certainly make me pick it up in a book store or click on it online to learn more!

Both sets of Delphine's grandparents met their partners in the natural/normal way, but things aren’t done like that anymore, it is considered too risky and not the right way. So despite Delphine and Tobias already feeling like they have found “the one” in each other they have to enter information to be 'matched' with their soulmate according to a computerised algorithm. This computerised algorithm is The Soulmate Project which was created in the 3030s when the divorce rate was at 65% but since the project began in 3040 the divorce rates have fallen to just 40%
The Soulmate Project is a sophisticated AI program that looks at data & info supplied to find the perfect match. Delphine and Tobias get together to fill in their forms and have made a pact to try to cheat the system. They attempt to answer the questions in such a way they will only be compatible with each other.

Everyone at the age of 18 attends a revelation party. These are separate gender parties, boys in one party girls in another. Delphine is at the party with her best friend Phoebe who is excited enough for both of them!! A woman called Raven makes her speech and says rather dramatically that the moment has arrived. Raven can see and hear from Delphines attitude that she isn’t fully sold on the Soulmate Project. Raven basically ends up telling Delphine to shut up!

Suddenly the little screen on their implants in their wrists come to life and reveal the name of the partner the government says is their Soulmate..............
Delphines does not say Tobias Delgado as she desperately wanted it to, it says Jasper Nieves, the name of a boy she has never heard of and never met that a computer has said is her perfect match and that she will marry him! Of cource Delphine immediately accosts Raven asking for things to be changed when this doesn’t work she demands it be changed and is eventually dismissed with the promise of a reassessment appointment. Though it will be after training camp meaning she will have to follow the process and to get to know Jasper.
Phoebe is of course ecstatic with her partner, Toby is as devasted as Delphine, he has been matched with a girl named Morgana.

The book continues with Delphine and Tobias secretly meeting up which is forbidden as they should be concentrating fully on the partners they have been assigned. Delphine does try to get to know Jasper, and Tobias is comfortable getting to know more about Morgana too. Though it soon becomes apparent that perhaps some of the matches are a little off and some perhaps way off too! The characters slowly learn more about themselves as well as their partners, Tobias begins to see negatives to a partner relationship with Delphine. Delphine hates the whole system and wants to change it. Let’s just say things don’t exactly turn out the way the characters wanted or the Soulmate Project wanted either!

The book is quite short and is told in verse which I quite enjoyed, I can see why it works as a HiLo book extremely well.

I felt a little sorry for Tobias as a character to begin with and felt he was being a little bull dozed into doing what Delphine wanted, though it turns out had she not challenged the process, perhaps he wouldn’t have ended up with his true soulmate either.

There were times I felt irritated by Delphine and wanted to reach into the book and shake her and say its not all about you! She came across as selfish and only thinking of herself. She didn’t even want to get to know Morgana simply because she had been paired with Tobias. I think what happened in the end with Delphine was fitting.

It’s really a shame this wasn’t a longer book, it could have been developed much more, there’s such a lot that could have happened and different characters that could have been introduced. I’d have loved to have learnt more about Violet and seen a happier ending for her too.
The only negative I have is the ending and tying up loose ends felt a little rushed, but as this is a HiLo book I guess there’s only a certain amount of pages allowed in it.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were that the basis of the book plot with a computer algorithm choosing their soulmates reminded me of the adult fiction book called The One by John Marrs where peoples DNA is inputted into a computer which reveals their perfect matches and also a little bit of Matched by Ally Condie.

Summing up I really enjoyed reading The Soulmate Project, it is very much a Aesop’s fable type of story with 'lessons to be learnt' within it. Such as the main characters finally standing up for themselves, for daring to have a voice, for daring to be different and not just do what is expected or demanded of them.


https://jeanzbookreadnreview.blogspot.com/2026/06/review-soulmate-project-by-anna.html
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/8715232408