Let me preface this review by saying that Matched has been described as The Hunger Games meets Twilight. (If neither of those titles sounds remotely appealing to you, feel free to stop reading now.)
Now that’s out of the way–a pretty much spoiler-free post is ahead.
I really liked Matched. Keeping in mind that it’s a young adult novel, there is quite a bit of fluff, especially in the first third to half of the novel. At the beginning, the story is even a little slow, but I stuck with it because I had a feeling the pace would pick up soon–and it did. The story is set in a dystopian society–indeed, the powers-that-be are called the Society, and they are in charge of everyone and everything. The Society tells you when to eat, when to sleep, what career to have, and even who to marry in a process called Matching. Cassia is a 17-year-old girl who is content to live within the confines of the Society’s predetermined rules; however, after a glitch occurs in her Matching results, she begins to question everything about who she is and whether the Society can truly be trusted.
Thankfully, Cassia is very much a likable character. I didn’t have many issues with her. The story is told from her perspective, so we’re inside her head for the entirety of the narrative. Happily, that narrative is decently written, as the author taught high school English before becoming an author. (I know that’s not necessarily saying much, since Stephenie Meyer has an English degree and is not a good writer, but at least Condie had written other novels prior to Matched. So, she’s at least got more experience under her belt.) But back to Cassia. She’s a caring girl and generally easy to get along with, but she becomes far more interesting when she begins to question the Society and, to a greater extent, who she is as an individual–a human–and not merely as one of the Society’s numerous working parts.
It wouldn’t be a contemporary young adult novel without a love triangle, and this one comes in the form of Cassia’s best friend, Xander, and the mysterious/brooding/slightly emo Ky. (Not fond of that name at all, but hey, I’m just a reader.) Early in the story, Cassia is Matched to Xander, but a wrench is thrown into the machine when Ky’s face appears on the Matching screen immediately after. What’s a girl to do? By the end of the novel, it becomes very clear who Cassia is in love with, for which I am grateful. There are two sequels planned, and I really didn’t want to spend two more novels angsting over who Cassia would choose.
Since others have already made the comparisons re: The Hunger Games and Twilight, I’ll just say that Matched isn’t terribly similar to either. Yes, there are elements that resemble THG, such as the dystopic society and even the love triangle, which of course is the driving force behind Twilight. But what I really like about Matched is that, like THG, the love triangle becomes a sub-plot to the catalyst of the narrative, which is Cassia’s discovery of who she really is and who she would like to be, in the hypothetical world outside of the Society.
Comparisons have also been made to Lois Lowry’s The Giver, with some even going so far as to say that Matched is a blatant ripoff. I read The Giver for the first time a few months ago, and I disagree with those claims. Again, as with the other comparative novels, there are similar themes in each book, but I found them to be very separate narratives that each stand on their own.
Now that I’ve sufficiently rambled at length about nothing in particular (since I’m trying to avoid spoilers), I’ll sum up by saying that I enjoyed Matched, I’ll read the sequels, and I hope that they live up to my expectations. My favorite part of the book is the final chapter–it’s really beautifully written, something that I feel was missing from large sections of the novel. There are moments when the prose becomes poetic and that quality reaches an intensity in the final chapter. I wish there had been more of that overall. Hopefully, the sequel will be even better.
