Matched by Ally Condie

Pages: 366

Intended Audience: Teens and Mature Tweens

Genre: Dystopian

Notes for Parents: Some mature scenes.

The Back Cover

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.

What the cover doesn’t tell you:

This is the first in the Matched trilogy.

What’s good?

The writing is fluid and the pace is even in this colorful dystopian love story. The premise is solid, the characters are likeable, and the society is interesting—even a little disturbing.

Best Part: Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night by Dylan Thomas

What isn’t good?

The romance was tepid. I’m not a fan of teen romance, especially love triangles, to begin with, but this was…lackluster. While the dystopian society was intriguing, it sounded a lot like the world created in Lois Lowry’s The Giver. A deeper understanding of how the society was created and the philosophy behind some of the rules could have set it apart, but alas, there was no explanation and most of what we learned was circumstantial.

Worst part: The perspective is in the present tense. This tends to stunt character growth and plot development.

Recommendation þþþoo

This book came to me with a lot of hype. If I had found it on my own, perhaps I would have enjoyed it more, but my high expectations made this lukewarm. It was good, but not as good as I expected.

Condie, Ally. Matched. New York: Scholastic, 2010.