Matched

Matched
By: Ally Condie

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. In the same dystopia genre as The Giver and Among the Hidden and even The Hunger Games, Matched tells the story of a girl named Cassia living in a society far in the future. In this society, almost all choice has been eliminated from the lives of people and is instead in the hands of the Society. Almost all cancer and other illnesses have been eradicated, but at a high cost. Citizens do not choose what they wear, where they live, what they eat (or how much), or who they marry.

In this society, at age 17, all young adults are put into a pool and are matched based on their genetic make-up and personalities. Matches are created to provide for the optimal gene mix for when the couple has children and for optimal changes of familial happiness.

The book opens with Cassia’s Matching ceremony, where she happens to be matched to her best friend Xavier. However, when Xavier’s face appears on the screen as her Match, his face disappears and is replaced by another face, the face of another boy whom she happens to know, named Ky. Just that one glimpse of another boy’s face prompts Cassia to begin to question the Matching system and the Society as a whole. As Cassia’s interest in Ky develops and as she and Ky share a forbidden poem from her grandfather, Cassia must confront her questions and decide whether the security the Society offers is worth more than her forbidden relationship with Ky and the chance to make choices.

I’ve enjoyed pretty much every futuristic dystopia novel that I’ve read, and this one was no exception. I enjoyed the delicious horror of imagining a society in which all choice has been taken away, and I enjoyed the slight hint of romance. To me, the society the author created felt believable, although I did wonder what would have to happen in the world for people to be willing to give up the ability to make choices. (Maybe the author will write a story set between present day and the time when Cassia lives. I would read that.)

Warning: Do not read the next paragraph if you don’t want the story spoiled for you.

One quarrel I did have with the story was that at the end, after Ky is taken away to fight in the war, Cassia decides she needs to go find him. Her parents seem to understand without her saying anything that she has fallen in love with a person who is not her Match, and they immediately offer to help her in any way they can to find Ky. I thought this wrapped up the story a little too quickly and neatly. The parents have lived their whole lives under the thumb of the Society government, and nowhere else in the story do they show signs that they question the Matching system or the Society. I thought that if the author wanted to use the parents to help Cassia, she should have showed them to rebel against the government and its systems a little bit before the end of the story.

But overall, I sincerely enjoyed Matched and I look forward to reading the next in the triology, Crossed!