Title: Matched
Series Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Type: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopian, Mystery, Romance
Pages: 366
Year of Release: 2010
Rating: 3.5 stars
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Synopsis: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow. (goodreads)
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow. (goodreads)
Review: Dystopia will be the new vampire, I'm sure of it. The Hunger Games and Divergent is perfect proof. When I first started reading "Matched" I thought it would be too. Matched has a perfect dystopian/utopian setting, a world where the government makes everything seem perfect. The catch is the word 'seem.' To the citizens, what the government does is always right, but there are secrets and mysteries that they can not understand and that is basically what the protagonist, Cassia, discovers throughout the book.
It starts with the matching ceremony, where the government picks the person each 17 year olds will marry. Cassia gets matched to her best friend Xander and feels perfectly content until she see's someone else's face on a microchip they were given. Ky, a boy she knows, was the face that appeared when Xander's face was suppose to. From that point on she starts to doubt in her belief of the society and, as she starts to get to know Ky better, she starts to doubt in herself as well.
This book was a good read, filled with details and poetic devices. That's the problem, the author stops to describe every little thing that Cassia feels or does so the story doesn't move along very well. The characters also seem very distant, their actions and speech are strange and that made them very hard to relate to. The only thing that stopped me from giving this book a lower rating was Cassia's thoughts. Her thinking is very unique, very deep and very conscious of everything that is happening around her.
Overall, Matched is a good book, maybe not the best book ever but still very unique.
