Book Review: Matched

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


Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly 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.

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As soon as I heard about Matched I just knew that I was going to enjoy it. Its dystopian and its part of a trilogy. Whats not to love? So when I managed to get my hands on an ARC copy I was ecstatic to say the least. I was a little worried at first that the book would disappoint me because I had been so excited about it. I thought that I might have built it up in my mind and that it might not be able to meet my expectations. But in all honesty Matched not only met my expectations, it exceeded them. It is an AMAZING book.

One of my favorite things about this book was the world that Ally Condie created. On the surface, it appears to be the perfect Utopian society. But underneath it all, its really a society of manipulation. There is no true freedom for anyone. You have to follow what the Officials say, or risk losing everything. It was really cool to see this realization start unraveling in Cassia's mind as the book progressed. At first she, like everyone around her, thinks that her world is perfect. But by the end of the novel Cassia sees the truth and all she wants is to be able to break free and make choices for herself.

My favorite character was definitely Ky. At first I didn't know what to think of him, but he definitely grew on me as the book went on. I just loved that he was a silent rebel. He didn't let the Officials have a complete hold on his life. And he was an artist. He wrote poetry and drew pictures and I loved that. It would have been a nice addition to the book if there had been illustrations of the messages he wrote to Cassia. But oh well.

There was only one thing that bothered me about this book and that was all the angst. Cassia was supposed to be with Xander, but then she was falling in love with Ky. She didn't know what to do, and she was constantly questioning her feelings, and poor Xander was caught in the middle! Cassia can't bring herself to tell him the truth so she pretty much is living this lie until practically the very end of the book. That was really sad for me to see because I loved Xander! He was such a great guy. If Ky wasn't so great too, then I would pretty much have hated Cassia for putting Xander through so much pain. Poor Xander!!! Nice guys don't deserve such pain and heartache!

I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. It seems like there might be a little less angst and a lot more adventure. It will be interesting to see how the story will progress from Cassia discovering the truth about her world, to her then acting on those discoveries.

I could spend more time talking about all the other things that I loved like Ally Condies writing style (beautifully simplistic! She didn't waste words!) or the addition of famous poetry, (I LOVE POETRY!) but that would take FOREVER and you probably wouldn't want to read it all. So I'll just end by saying that I loved this book and you should definitely read it.

I give Matched 4 and a half out of 5 cupcakes!

Wait? What? Not 5 you say? I'm raving about this book and it doesn't get 5 cupcakes? Well there was the whole angst issue. I just can't look past that. :/

Julia :)