Review of Matched by Ally Condie

Basic Info

Release date: November 30, 2010

Pages: 366 (hardcover)

Genre: dystopian, young adult

Debut Author Challenge

Summary from Goodreads.com

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.

Review

Matched reminded me, nostalgically, of The Giver by Lois Lowry.  We have a society where everything is dictated to its participants through ceremonies as they come of age.  These decisions are supposed to be for the benefit of society.  The characters don’t question it, but as readers we do, because we are used to making the decisions that they can’t. 

Enter our heroine, Cassia, she’s followed the rules all of her life, and now something occurs that makes her question the officials, Society, everything she’s ever known.  After being “matched” with her best friend, Xander, a very rare occurance (usually the matches come from different cities and providences), Cassia finds her data card also has the picture of Ky, another friend.  Even once the “mistake” is explained away, Cassia can’t stop thinking about whether it was truly a mistake, and what it would be like to make that decision herself.

Matched was an intriguing read that made me appreciate my freedom to choose.  I enjoyed the world that Ally Condie built: the technology, the Society, and the creeping feeling that something sinister is lurking behind all of that organized perfection.  I can’t wait to see how this series unfolds.  I am starting to realize though, that dystopian literature does not equal happily ever after (case in point: Hunger Games series and the Uglies series).

Rating

Cover: 10/10 Love the dress, love the imagery of being trapped, and I love that the cover related to the story

Plot: 9/10

Characters: 9/10 I’m still getting to know them, but they did have some unexpected depth

Ending: 8/10

Mom approval: 10/10

Romance-okay, it’s not on my rating list, but still, 7/10, I wasn’t really feeling it here.  The characters were compelling, the relationship was developing, but I didn’t see it getting to the point of love yet (even though I was told that they were in love).  Judge for yourself though, I’ll be waiting to see in the next books if I feel better about it.

Overall: 88%  B+