I finally took time to read Matched, the first book in a dystopia trilogy written by Ally Condie. I’ve had it for quite a while now, standing there in my bookshelf, but for some reason I haven’t felt like start reading it. Thought it would be just like all the other books I’ve read, with the same concept and conflicts. Silly little me, how could I be so terribly wrong? Maybe it’s just me and the fact that it was a while ago I read anything at all, but I really loved this book! Like I said in the beginning is this a dystopia novel and for you who doesn’t know the meaning of “dystopia” I shall explain; Dystopian fiction explores social and political structures. It’s a creation of a horrible or degraded society, where the government rule over the citizens with no mercy and watch their every move like a hawk. An example of another dystopian novel is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
Cassia Reyes is the main character in Matched and she lives in what’s called “The Society”. For the persons who live in it, it seems like the perfect world, but as the reader or the ones who remembers how it was before – they so called rebels – it’s obvious that The Society has some serious flaws. The Society decides everything – from what food you will get to dinner to who you will marry.
The book begins with Cassia sitting on an air train, on her way to her Matching Banquet. The Matching Banquet is what all the ones – who haven’t chosen to be a Single – attend when they’ve turned 17 years old, to get to know who they have been Matched with. Until this day Cassia have been perfectly happen with her life and she’s looking forward to see the face of her future husband. At the banquet it turns out that her match is her best friend Xander Carrow, who she has known her whole life. She sees herself as very fortunate to already know her Match and for it to be someone like Xander – handsome, smart and very kind.
At some point after the Matching Banquet Cassia’s life turns in another direction and she finds herself falling for another boy. She finds herself coming lose from all the things The Society made her believe and starts to see the wrongness in everything. She learns how to write – something that The Society has forbidden – and for each new step she takes against The Society, the chains around her wrists loosens a bit more.
There is other books with similar concept (e.g. Delirium by Lauren Oliver), but nevertheless is Matched a really great book with enough uniqueness to make it fun and interesting to read. I have yet to read the two following books (Crossed and Reached) and I’ve read some bad reviews about them, but I hope they won’t disappoint me.
Review written by Elvira Garp
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