Matched

This review can also be found at http://fortheloveofbooksreviews.blogspot.ca/2016/11/matched-by-ally-condie.html

In Cassia's world, who you marry is determined by who the Society matches you with. When Cassia is matched with her best friend, Xander, she's ecstatic. But her excitement fades quickly when she begins to suspect that something is going on, that there might be an error in the system, and that Ky, another boy her age, might have been meant to be her match.

As she starts to question the Society, she finds herself torn between Ky and Xander, between obedience and rebellion. Breaking more and more rules, Cassia must make a choice. Will she live the life that the Society has planned for her? Or will she break free and look for something more?

This is the kind of dystopian or futuristic novel that I like to read. It's got an oppressive or controlling government, a forbidden romance and lots and lots of rebellion. I think that my favourite part about this whole book was how Cassia started to break rules and defy the Society, because the tension and worry I felt that she might get caught was super intense.

The author completely immersed me in Cassia's world, and I dreaded her having to face the consequences of her actions. At the same time, I really hated the government and the Society and I couldn't stop reading because I just had to know if she would rise above them, and succeed in her goals. When I say that I was reading this book at every chance I got, I mean it!

The romance was a little bit cheesy but I actually don't mind some cheesiness within my reads, so this didn't bother me at all. It was a forbidden romance too, which added to the whole rebellion aspect. As somebody who appreciates love triangles, I can say that I think the author wrote the love triangle in this novel extremely well, and I am still undecided concerning who I want Cassia to end up with. I find that those are the best kind of love triangles because they make me frustrated, and wanting to read the next book in the series to see who the character chooses!

I was sad as I neared the end of the book because I wanted more. I wanted to keep reading about Cassia's situation and story, I wanted to know what would happen next. Flipping the last page left me super disappointed because I enjoyed this book so much! I can't wait to get my hands on the next one, and I hope it's just as amazing as the first book in this series.

I recommend this book to those who like their dystopian reads with some romance! If you also like reading about people starting to rebel against their situation, this would be a perfect read for you.

This is going to be a short review as I don't really have too much to say. I hated this book, I fell asleep trying to read it twice and even then found myself cleaning the house instead of picking up this book. I finally just made myself finish, hoping it got better... nope. Still, boring and very slow. I will not be continuing this series nor will I ever read something by Ally again, I don't like her writing style either.

I have to say i was disapointed by MATCHED, what with its promising plot and interesting beginning. The first three chapters were stupendous, introducing the well-fleshed-out Cassia Reyes and Xander and her family, the great Matching sequence that i found oddly interesting. And as time went on, the book seemed to meld together. The love was not overpowering, though it consumed 3/4 of the book.

The last part of MATCHED is my favorite part, due to the great ending and the great running sequence. I found that the middle of the book was all the same, Cassi running from Xander to Ky and vice-versa in a desperate act of finding out who she really wants to be with.

Ally Condie is a fabulous author, though her pitfall is the romance. But Ally did one of the best jobs of fleshing out the Society and the people living in it. I haven’t experianced such a great dystopiann society built from the ashes in such a long time! The Hunger Games was a great world, and Divergent did an okay job, but MATCHED was a totally believable world with a good system.

Overall, i liked MATCHED enough that i am anxious to read CROSSED, but i hope Cassia can be more independant for decisions and free.

I expect great things from Ally Condie!

I can understand why people like this. I really can. But the fact is that I am tired of love triangles, I am tired of books where every single little thing goes wrong, and I am tired of narrators that make me angry to no end.

And I also want to say that I'm biased against this book and always have been, because of the love triangle. I've gotten to the point where it doesn't matter how good the love triangle is written - I hate it. I'm tired of seeing some form of a love triangle in practically every single book. Sorry, but how many girls do you know that have two guys in love with them? Not enough to fill all these books, that's for sure.

And no, I don't just hate love triangles because they're overused. I have other reasons that would take up way too much of this post. Maybe another post can be full of my rant ;D

Anyway, I can't say that Matched was a terrible book. It wasn't. Cassia was a rational character who didn't do stupid things very often. But I just had too many problems with it to enjoy it, the love triangle being only one of them. I thought it was interesting, how she saw Xander's face and then Ky's flashed, but I couldn't help but wonder how the Society could have let that happen. If they've been doing it for awhile, kinks should be worked out, yeah? >_>


(I want to also admit that I skimmed a lot of parts in this book. I'm easily bored.)


And here I'm going to do the unspeakable. I'm going to compare Matched to another book O_O Don't hate me. Please. And please don't hate me when I say I'm going to compare it to The Hunger Games. I promise that it's not just because they're both dystopians.


There was a lot of things in Matched that reminded me of THG, but there was especially one line, when Cassia was with Xander towards the end of the book. She was thinking about how she could be in that one moment without the Society watching, and the line was honestly practically the same line as in one of The Hunger Games novels, except, y'know, with "Capitol" instead of "Society."


My biggest problem, though, was Cassia herself. Say what you want about Katniss being a cold-hearted bitch, (I can't argue with that) but at least Katniss was brave. She did practically everything she could to defy the Capitol. To me, Cassia was weak. By the end of the book, she pretty much hates the Society. She doesn't like them very much in the middle, either. But what does she do about it? Not very much. I feel like all she really did to defy the Society was fall in love with Ky.


Another problem I had was that I felt like too much of the book was about romance. I would have liked to see more plot involving other things. Because in the end, pretty much every little thing still came back to Xander or Ky.


AND THE MISTAKES. I mean, the book wasn't littered with them, but there were still too many for a published book. I mean, one mistake is too many for a published book, if you ask me, but >_>


Overall: Okay, yeah, this was barely a review. It was really just a rant of how much I hated the book. But I'll be honest - even if the idea wasn't original, some of the things Condie did with it were nice twists. So instead of one star, it gets two :P (And the cover is really, really awesome.)

It’s that age-old question: Is there such a thing as a soul mate? That one person who is made just for you, and the universe is doing its darndest to put you two together. (That’s how I always felt about Dolly Parton, but the world has still failed to cross our paths.) But could it be possible that there is more than one person who is perfect for you? That’s the question Ally Condie tackles in “Matched.”

For Cassia, Condie’s main character, everything is electronically tracked, from how well you perform academically to what sort of things you like to do in your free time. With all of this information, computers do a little beep-boo-beep, and voila! They discover your perfect match. Unfortunately for Cassia, the system has found her two perfect matches. The problem? Besides not allowing polygamy as an option, the government has also chosen the match Cassia is required to eventually Contract with (marry), and she thinks she is falling more in love with the other guy.

“Matched” explores that lovestruck concept of whether or not there can ever be the perfect person for you on paper (or on a computer screen), or if true love comes from random, unpredictable moments. To give it a little pizzazz, the concept is paired with a futuristic Giver-like dystopia where everything seems picture perfect on the surface, but might be a lot more ugly as you dig deeper. If it turns out computers actually can find that perfect partner, that’s one app Apple really needs to capitalize on.

I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. Usually I don't really go for the lovey-dovey centered stories, but this book made me realize that I do appreciate a well-written romance, which is what this book incorporated really well.

Like I said, this book very well-written. I loved how the author revealed this utopian Society to us. It was really interesting to read how his world works and all the conspiracies that were actually going on beneath the surface. Plus, this book brought up some moral issues like free will vs. the good of people that got me thinking. I mean, who doesn't like some philosophy with their YA book of their choice? As far as world-building goes, Ally Condie did an excellent job.

Onto the romance. I liked how the author worked the romance into the story; it was kind of like a tool used to help Cassia discover what was wrong in the Society, which I guess it was. Love triangles are so overdone in the YA genre, but I didn't mind this one. Cassia was a good, strong main character; I really liked Xander, even though it was clear he would get the short end of the deal; I just wished we got to see Ky and Cassia's relationship develop more: it seemed rushed at some times throughout the book. Still, a very clever romance aspect.

Overall An awesome new world that I can't wait to get back to. So what if romance plays a big part? Read it!

In Society, where everything is darn near perfect, mistakes rarely happen. So when Cassia is matched with one of her best friends, she is over joyed. Everything is going perfect until she views her matchs file only to have another boys face appear. Another boy that she knows. Told that its an error and that Ky can't be her match, Cassia starts to realize that the Society isn't perfect. People are told what to believe and do and they do it without question. When it comes to love, should other people get to decide for you? Matched was an interesting take on a realistic future.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if all the decisions in your life were already made?
That's what Cassia, a 17 year old girl living in the Society has to deal with. The society choses everything. What your job is, where you live, when you die. Specifically of these things, who you're matched with. At 17, each person will be matched with someone to marry and live a life with. When Cassia is matched with her childhood best friend Xander, she is sure he is the right one. One day, when she is checking out his micro card, another face appears on screen. One she knows. Ky, another friend of her's. But, Ky is an exception. He can never be matched because of his past. After Cassia sees him on screen, she starts to question who her real match is. Will Cassia take the choice society picked or try a different path? Find out in matched.

I really loved this book. The story line was great, exciting, and made me want to keep reading. The romance aspect made it interesting, yet there wasn't too much of it to be annoying. I recommend it for anyone.

Oh Matched....

Matched took a very long time to start but once the story really got going, I didn't want to put the book down.

The Society controls everything. From what they eat, wear, and what leisure activities they are allowed to pick from to who and when they marry, when and how they die, and how they live. The list goes on and on. And somehow the Society has managed to brainwash everyone into thinking that this is all for their own good. It's disgusting and frustrated me throughout the entire book. If I had to compare it to any fictional world, it would probably be to what it must have been like to live in the Capitol in The Hunger Games.

For the first one-hundred pages or so, the narrative was at times disjointed and hard to follow, but thankfully that changed. Honestly, I mostly kept reading because I was waiting for the book to get better. I had heard it was great so I was expecting to devour it in two days or less. My mistake. The first half wasn't awful but it felt like nothing was really happening. But... once we got to around page two-hundred, things started to get better until finally, I really didn't want to put the book down. The second half is what I expected most of the book to be like: gripping.

Cassia pretty much annoyed and frustrated me for the first half of the book. But that's mostly because she could only think about the same three things over and over again. Thank goodness for chapter twenty-one! Finally, Cassia admits to herself who she actually loves and the love story really starts to move along.

Xander pleasantly surprised me. In the beginning it seemed like he would be the type of friend who the girl only likes because he's all she's ever known. And those type of guys tend to be really annoying. A good example of what I mean by this is Jason from The Hourglass Door. He was the guy the girl always want but turned out to be a dud. Thankfully, Xander wasn't like that. I actually really like him but not as Cassia's Match.

I'm not quite sure what I like about Ky. He's not like the typical love interest you usually find in these type of stories. You don't know about his past, but he's not mysterious like Four from Divergent or Wolf from Scarlet. He doesn't have that safe but dark feel to him, which was unexpected. Nevertheless, I really do like Ky. He's a real person in a story full of brainwashed characters.

Even with all of my complaints, I do want to find out what happens to Cassia, Ky and Xander, so I will be reading the second book. Thank goodness the second half redeemed itself, but I was very disappointed that it took so long for the story to get moving.

Despite my complaints, I'm glad I read Matched and will be reading the rest of the series.

A lot of people came to this book with preconceived ideas. Which is usually a bad way to start a book. I'm grateful I came to it without having read a single review, and only barely having skimmed the book blurb. It stood on its own, and on its own it was beautiful. The transition Cassia makes from contented subject to rebel is gradual and believable. Nothing seems hidden at the beginning, but the unravelling details that damn the dystopia are just the right kind of insidious for us to rebel right along with her. It's an homage to every dystopian novel before it, while remaining a simple, precious, and endearing romance. I am usually upset/annoyed by love triangles, as they're generally overused, unnecessary, and not particularly romantic (seriously, there's really nothing romantic about hurting two perfectly decent young men over love). This is unfortunately not an exception, as Xander and Ky, who both could have used better names, both lacked flaws of any kind (other than their names) to nudge our preferences in a particular direction. The result is a love story tainted by a tertiary character destined for disappointment. However, Cassia's parents were wonderful - it's always refreshing when a character doesn't need dead parents to have her own story - and her brother was darling. The book ends at just the right moment for transition to book two - much like Delirium, in fact. I appreciate any book that uses poetry as unawkwardly as Matched manages to (Lies Beneath, by Anne Greenwood Brown, is another). I can only hope we'll have a new generation of readers buying volumes of Tennyson and Dylan Thomas.