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Book Review of Matched (Matched, Bk 1)

Matched (Matched, Bk 1)
Matched (Matched, Bk 1)
Author: Ally Condie
Genre: Teen & Young Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
jade19721 avatar reviewed on + 115 more book reviews


Do you want to know what I find scary? It's not blood, gore, guts, veins in the teeth kinda stories. It's also not things that go bump in the night or jump out at you in a dark alley. What I find scary are stories about dystopian societies that have gone a bit cray-cray! Societies that have dissolved into something far more scarier than a ghost or a random dead body in an alleyway. The Society in this book is a bit frightening. Your ability to make any kind of choice for yourself has been taken away for you. You are told what to eat, wear, whom to marry, what job you can have, and where you can live. You are not allowed to have any of your neighbors in your house and you are monitored 24/7 by "The Officials." The Society only lets you live till your 80th birthday and you can only have children up to the age of 31. At 17 you are matched to your spouse and at 21 you are married to them. Scared yet? You screw up and you get what are called infractions. The more infractions you receive the worse off your life can be.

All of the above is what happens to the main character Cassia. Cassia is 17 and is matched with her best friend Xander. She is soon to get her job placement and if she followed all the rules like she was supposed to she would have had the "perfect" life according to The Society. Well let's throw in another guy named Ky who is considered an aberration, some smuggled poetry from the old days, and feelings that she is not supposed to have. Matched is a pretty good story so far even though it is quite predictable. I'm not a huge fan of stories where the romance is the main focus, but I knew that going into the book. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to Cassia in the next two books of the series.