By: Ally Condie
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Matched is a dystopian-fiction book with a twist of teen-romance thrown in throughout the book. I read this in school with my entire language arts class, and almost everyone loved this book in a way that I haven’t seen with many other books. It the first book in a series of 3, and I have already ordered the next two books, Crossed and Reached, so stay tuned!
Ever since Cassia was born, she has believed that the Society can’t make mistakes; it’s perfect, the choices, the beliefs, everything in the Society is perfect. On her matching day, the day where a government is deciding who your partner will be for the rest of your life, she was hoping for at least someone nice, but when she saw her childhood bestfriend, Xander, pop up on the screen, she knew she would never doubt the Society, until another face showed up, a different one, Ky. Soon enough, Cassia can’t stop thinking about Ky, and what freedom tastes like, and eventually falls in love. Now she has a very hard choice to make, Xander or Ky, safety or freedom? Which one will she pick? Only time will tell.
One of my favorite parts of this book wasn’t actually a part of the plot, but how many themes the author was able to explore and add to Matched. One of the main, overarching themes of Matched was “control vs. freedom”. This theme played out in many different parts of the book, from exploring the difference between a love marriage, and an arranged marriage, to the constant restriction of daily life things, especially art and music, against Cassia’s will to be free and do what she wants.
I think that people who enjoy dystopian, teen-romance, romance in general, or fighting for freedom topics will enjoy this book. Also, people who enjoy Ally Condie as a writer should check this book out. Since there are some heavier topics along with this book being a little longer, I would recommend this book for 6th-9th graders.
