Matched

by Ally Condie

Dedication: "For Scott, who always believes"

First paragraph: "Now that I've found a way to fly, which direction should I go into the night? My wings aren't white or feathered: they're green, made of green silk, which shudders in the wind and bends when I move -- first in a circle, then in a line, finally in a shape of my own invention. The black behind me doesn't worry me; neither do the stars ahead."

Review: Cassia lives in a world where the Society makes all the important choices for its citizens. When they marry, who they marry, what they do for a living, and when they die. There are banquets held for some of the more important decisions and the book starts off with Cassia on her way to be Matched with her future husband.

However, one moment of seeing the wrong face on her microcard sets Cassia's actions and thoughts into an unpredictable course. Before she knows it, she's doubting everything she's ever known. Finally, she has to choose but the decision isn't easy.

I'm starting to see a pattern behind the books I most enjoy. A post-apocalyptic world where a government has been created that rules its citizens with an iron fist. Where choices are limited and the citizens are complacent. Or are they?

This is the first book in the trilogy. Once again, I didn't realize it was a series until after I started reading it but it wraps up nicely so I can't really complain. The next book, Crossed, is released November 2011.

The characters in this book are fantastic. I really can't decide who I want Cassia to be with. Boy number one is always there for her, always has been. But boy number two is the choice that goes against what the Society insists. He's "dangerous" in the same way knowing one poem that isn't on the hundred-poems list is dangerous. It's knowing more than they want you to know. If they can't control your knowledge they can't control you.

I didn't get a chance to blog my thoughts about this book right away so some of the other things I thought while reading have faded and I can't remember everything I wanted to address but the moral of my thoughts was that I loved this book. It was a page turner. It kept me interested. Its characters were realistic. Some of the choices made were infuriating and, at the same time, the choice any normal person would have made.

While there are some similarities, it's not The Hunger Games. There's less action and more thinking/feeling going on. Cassia is barely discovering that the Society isn't all it's cracked up to be. She's never doubted them until now; where Katniss grew up always hating her government because of the living circumstances she had to endure.

Matched was about Cassia deciding who and what she would become. I think the decisions she made in this book will play out on a much larger scale as we read our way through the rest of the trilogy and I cannot wait to see what happens.

Click here for more information about Matched and Ally Condie herself.