The debut novel of author Ally condie, Matched is the first book in her futuristic trilogy.
On her seventeenth birthday, Cassia Reyes attends her Match Banquet, where '
the society' announces who she must marry when she turns twenty-one. Cassia is thrilled with her match. But something goes wrong, and that is when Cassia starts to fall in love with another guy who's not her match. Forced to follow the rules, ominous warnings trouble Cassia. She's watched by society, trapped by rules; but can Cassia be freed by love?
At the beginning of the novel, I found that Matched was a bit slow-moving, but after a few chapters, I felt intrigued as to what was going to happen.
The writing style is one that is easy to understand, gives clear descriptions of characters, settings, and uses simple language.
Personally, I found the plot fairly predictable, but this may not be the case for some, and don't let this put you off as I still found this book enjoyable.
It was a cute concept, but I think that it needed a bit more of a punch to it for it to gain that 'special something'. You know:
that character,
that plot twist.
An intriguing concept and I can see how people have been raving about it. I don't mean to sound like a Grinch, I thought it was a decent read, but I found it reminiscent of some great novels that I have read, but not quite coming up to the bar.
I'm interested to see where Condie takes the rest of the trilogy, and if you can look past the slight predictability, then I recommend this if you're 13-16 years old, most likely females will enjoy this semi-dystopian age old love story of forbidden love and the cost.
