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The Gist:
The Society is perfect. The Officials plan out everything. What you eat and where you work. Who you love, and even when you die. Not making your own decisions is a small price to pay for having a long, healthy life, and the people blindly follow the Society’s rules. Cassia Reyes has complete faith in the Officials’ choices. And there’s no reason she shouldn’t; her life has been wonderful so far. At seventeen years old, Cassia is ready to be paired with her ideal match-for-life at her Matching Ceremony. She isn’t surprised when she’s Matched with her best friend, Xander Carrow. Her life continues to be wonderful. But when she sees a second match, things get confusing. Suddenly thrust into a world of rebellion, corruption and lies, Cassia learns that The Society isn’t as wonderful as it appears. Her life is turned completely upside down, and she’s forced to make a choice between what is true and what is perfect.
What We Think
Reviewed by Living Destiny
Number of Pages: 366
We got this book a month or two ago as an ARC. (For those of you who aren’t savvy with the book lingo, ARC stands for Advanced Reading Copy). I remember being really excited, because it was a new book to read that everyone else had to wait to read. Yes I’m a dork. But then I had to wait to read it (because North and Dream both got to read it before me). So then I was annoyed, and found myself thinking ‘this book had better be worth the wait’. Well guess what? It actually was.
So, the plot. It reminds me a little of The Giver. It has the same story of the perfect world, where the secret flaws are revealed to the protagonist. It’s nice to get a view of the future that isn’t all perfect technology, but isn’t total chaos either. In this book, the future seems perfect. There are problems, but not many people know about them. It’s like a false sense of security. Creepy, but interesting. I thought the link to poetry throughout the story was nice. It was strange to see how they only saved one hundred of all the arts. I can’t imagine how they would choose what to keep. If I had to be the one to choose, I might explode. But that’s just me. Then there’s the whole concept of ‘Matching’. It’s fascinating. I always love those elements in good books that make you stop reading and just think for a while. The idea of an ‘ideal match’ got me to do just that. Would my match be some random person from I-don’t-even-know-where? Or would he be my best friend, just like Cassia? How weird would it be to get matched with your best friend? I feel like it would be really awkward. But maybe not. Now I’m picturing myself matched with my best friend. And this just got too weird to even think about. But I’m stuck thinking about it. Gahhh. Moving on!
The characters! I liked Cassia as a main character. She had spunk. She was a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but it was understandable because she had been living in the same way for so long. She was strong. Not so much physically strong as mentally and emotionally strong, but still strong. She didn’t back down when she wrapped her head around a goal, like climbing a hill. There were times when she wasn’t confident in what she was doing, and she got nervous, but she stuck with it. That was nice because it made her easy to relate to. Everyone gets afraid. Cassia wasn’t the only important character in the story though. The boys: Xander and Ky. Personally, I liked Ky way better than I liked Xander (although North will tell you that’s only because I have a thing for ‘Ky’s). Xander was sweet and charming, but it seemed like he tried a little too hard at the being matched together thing. He also seemed distant from Cassia at times, which is weird given that he also tried too hard, but it’s how he acts. Ky was a mystery, which made him more interesting than Xander. He was just as sweet as Xander was, but in a more intense way. That sounds weird, I know. Xander was sweet in an aw-that’s-cute-you’re-my-best-friend-and-I-love-you sort of way, but Ky was sweet in an I-trust-you-enough-to-tell-you-my-deepest-secrets-plus-I-fell-in-love-with-you sort of way. I guess to me, the bottom line was Ky seemed deep and real, while Xander seemed shallow and a little fake.
So lastly (how appropriate), the last line. The last line of a book is actually the first thing I read. I know that’s rather bizarre and backwards, but the last line is like the first line for me. It needs to be really strong, or I feel like the book will be weak or lame. The last line of this book is really strange and cryptic. I didn’t understand it at all when I read it, but it got me interested, because I wanted to know how it would make sense. And when you read the book through to the end, it does make sense. It was like a little ah-ha moment for me. I get it now! That kind of thing. So the last line was good.
I ended up liking Matched. I didn’t want to put the book down. Which is always a good sign. It’s possible for this book to stand alone, although it would end at a killer cliff hanger. It’s going to be a trilogy though (aren’t all books these days? Not that I’m really complaining), so I’m left waiting for the next book, just as I was left waiting to read Matched. Hopefully the next book measures up to this one, in all areas (including cover art, because the cover art for Matched was really cool). Final word? Cute, meaningful story. It makes you think, and it gets some emotion out of you too. All around good. And the contest between Xander and Ky makes it that much more entertaining. (Ky is better!)
Real Teen Rating ~ A-: Read it!
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
First off, you should know that I LOVE dystopian stories. Dystopia (in literature) is an often (meaning 99.99% of the time) futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. Yes. That’s dystopian for you, courtesy of wikipedia because all of the definitions on dictionary.com were stupid. So anyways I love that kind of thing. Futuristic government consiparcies and too-advanced technology and the supposed “perfect society”. Whenever I hear about a book like that I drop whatever I’m currently reading and find out more about that because, seriously, who doesn’t want to read a book that makes modern-day-society seem perfect? So when I heard what Matched was about I was obviously excited to read it.
Plot in one word: dystopian. Kidding. More like interesting. That’s such a boring word, though. Ooh I found some synonyms at thesaurus.com. Here they are: riveting, enthralling, engaging, compelling. I’ll stop there. Compelling was the best, it most described the plot, I think. Either way, the plot was interesting and very dystopian. I love the thought of being matched, but at the same time I hated it. Imagine just being told you were perfect for someone. Being told that you would love them. Horrible. There’s no falling in love; there’s just “Okay, I’ll love this person, they are my match, after all”. Not fair. But at the same time eveything would be so much easier. Being matched wasn’t only to a person, but a job, too. Officials picked what kind of job you would have. Again; good and bad. No one’s out of a job. But you don’t get to pick, either, or do what you love. Like if someone wanted to be a writer they couldn’t because there was no writing anymore. If someone wanted to be a singer they couldn’t because there was no singing anymore. Shudder. I guess that was my long and winded way of saying that the concept of being matched to someone was captivating. Their whole world was really facinating, so, in that, the plot was good.
Characters. Eh. In my opinion Cassia wasn’t the best. Her character was flat and kind of bland. She kept clinging to her society and that was annoying. She was also kind of clueless. She wouldn’t get what was happening until the second after it was too late. It just didn’t make for a very strong main character. To give credit where it is due, though, there was some character development, so by the end of the book she was a much stronger character. So that was good. Xander was sweet and caring, but since he was introduced as the best friend, I never thought of him as anything more than that. So, even though they were matched, I thought it was bizare that Cassia kept trying to convince herself that they were completely perfect for each other. Kind of annoying. I know that’s not his fault but I was annoyed he kept hanging on, too. Ky was good character. He was my favorite character because he was mysterious and didn’t go along with everything in the Society. He was a good, strong character. Cassia’s family and her friend Em were pretty good yet average characters. But I think that’s to be expected from non-main characters. Cassia’s grandfather was one of the better characters, I think. He was strong and wise in his own grandfatherly way. The real problem I had with the characters was that I didn’t feel connected to them at all. Something would happen and I’d think oh, well, I guess that’s sad. Or exciting, or dramatic, or whatever. Mostly the characters were a little bland. Maybe that was purposeful – to go along with a perfect/bland society – but it didn’t seem right. But overall they were pretty good characters.
What bothered me most about this book – what made me give it such a low grade – was the writing itself. If the writing style had been different I would have really enjoyed the book. But it wasn’t. It was stiff and too-formal sounding. Now maybe the author wrote it like this on purpose. Trying to make Cassia sound as if she really was from her straight-forward, no-nonsense society. And if that’s the case…coolio. Wonderful. Spot-on. But the author had to keep in mind who was going to read this. Regular teenagers. Not Society ones. She still has to make the character relatable through the writing (it was in first person, after all) and in that, I feel, is where she failed. But I know the North Star and Living Destiny didn’t have a problem with the writing at all. So maybe I’m just being picky. I tend to be when it comes to writing. But there’s got to be someone out there who thinks like I do…right? Maybe they’ll agree with me.
First and last lines. Utterly important, right? Right. So the first line is pretty good. I think there are better ways she could have started off a story like this one, but she’s the author, not me. So if she thinks its pure brilliance, then sure, it’s pure brilliance. I just think its average. It didn’t really make me want to read it any more than when I first picked up the book, but it could’ve been worce. First line: “Now that I’ve found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night?”. I think the thing I don’t like about it is that it asks a question. Who is she asking? Herself? I dunno, I found that weird. Now the end line is as important as the first. It can change how you remember the book. Like if a book was good but it had a really bad last line, you’re going to remember that terrible line, and maybe forget some other part of the book that was actually good. So, the last line’s extremely important. When I read it, at first I loved it (I always read the ending line second, right after the first). It was cool and cryptic and overall really good. But when I was reading the book through I realized that she’d already said the ending line three or four times before the end! Why would you do that? It just made the whole ending paragraph feel redundent! So that was annoying. You’ll see what I mean if you read it.
Now there was this poem that repeatedly kept coming up in the story. Like a theme. At first I thought it was a really nice touch – because poetry can be really beautiful - but it came up to many times for my liking. Too much. It got to be annoying, like some chant used in the right context and wrong. It almost replaced the characters emotions at times. Like instead of writing about what Cassia was feeling, or something, she would put in a few lines of the poem in italics. Like Cassia was saying them to herself. It was okay, but just a little over the top at times, I think.
Overall the book was pretty good, but nothing special. In my opinion. If you’re looking for a good dystopian book, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one, but I wouldn’t beg you not to read it, or anything like that. It was a book that wasn’t quite memorable for being good or for being bad. That’s all there is to it. But I think the second in the trilogy will be better. Few short words on the cover and title. On a scale of very coolio (meaning AWESOME) to not coolio (meaning bad). Cover: pretty coolio – I think they could have done a little better. Title: coolio – not the best title ever but still good. I love one-word titles. So, yeah. The book was pretty good and I want to read the second! Cliff-hanger (kinda)!
Real Teen Rating~ C+ : Well I guess it was good…
The Gist:
The Society is perfect. The Officials plan out everything. What you eat and where you work. Who you love, and even when you die. Not making your own decisions is a small price to pay for having a long, healthy life, and the people blindly follow the Society’s rules. Cassia Reyes has complete faith in the Officials’ choices. And there’s no reason she shouldn’t; her life has been wonderful so far. At seventeen years old, Cassia is ready to be paired with her ideal match-for-life at her Matching Ceremony. She isn’t surprised when she’s Matched with her best friend, Xander Carrow. Her life continues to be wonderful. But when she sees a second match, things get confusing. Suddenly thrust into a world of rebellion, corruption and lies, Cassia learns that The Society isn’t as wonderful as it appears. Her life is turned completely upside down, and she’s forced to make a choice between what is true and what is perfect.
What We Think
Reviewed by Living Destiny
Number of Pages: 366
We got this book a month or two ago as an ARC. (For those of you who aren’t savvy with the book lingo, ARC stands for Advanced Reading Copy). I remember being really excited, because it was a new book to read that everyone else had to wait to read. Yes I’m a dork. But then I had to wait to read it (because North and Dream both got to read it before me). So then I was annoyed, and found myself thinking ‘this book had better be worth the wait’. Well guess what? It actually was.
So, the plot. It reminds me a little of The Giver. It has the same story of the perfect world, where the secret flaws are revealed to the protagonist. It’s nice to get a view of the future that isn’t all perfect technology, but isn’t total chaos either. In this book, the future seems perfect. There are problems, but not many people know about them. It’s like a false sense of security. Creepy, but interesting. I thought the link to poetry throughout the story was nice. It was strange to see how they only saved one hundred of all the arts. I can’t imagine how they would choose what to keep. If I had to be the one to choose, I might explode. But that’s just me. Then there’s the whole concept of ‘Matching’. It’s fascinating. I always love those elements in good books that make you stop reading and just think for a while. The idea of an ‘ideal match’ got me to do just that. Would my match be some random person from I-don’t-even-know-where? Or would he be my best friend, just like Cassia? How weird would it be to get matched with your best friend? I feel like it would be really awkward. But maybe not. Now I’m picturing myself matched with my best friend. And this just got too weird to even think about. But I’m stuck thinking about it. Gahhh. Moving on!
The characters! I liked Cassia as a main character. She had spunk. She was a little slow on the uptake sometimes, but it was understandable because she had been living in the same way for so long. She was strong. Not so much physically strong as mentally and emotionally strong, but still strong. She didn’t back down when she wrapped her head around a goal, like climbing a hill. There were times when she wasn’t confident in what she was doing, and she got nervous, but she stuck with it. That was nice because it made her easy to relate to. Everyone gets afraid. Cassia wasn’t the only important character in the story though. The boys: Xander and Ky. Personally, I liked Ky way better than I liked Xander (although North will tell you that’s only because I have a thing for ‘Ky’s). Xander was sweet and charming, but it seemed like he tried a little too hard at the being matched together thing. He also seemed distant from Cassia at times, which is weird given that he also tried too hard, but it’s how he acts. Ky was a mystery, which made him more interesting than Xander. He was just as sweet as Xander was, but in a more intense way. That sounds weird, I know. Xander was sweet in an aw-that’s-cute-you’re-my-best-friend-and-I-love-you sort of way, but Ky was sweet in an I-trust-you-enough-to-tell-you-my-deepest-secrets-plus-I-fell-in-love-with-you sort of way. I guess to me, the bottom line was Ky seemed deep and real, while Xander seemed shallow and a little fake.
So lastly (how appropriate), the last line. The last line of a book is actually the first thing I read. I know that’s rather bizarre and backwards, but the last line is like the first line for me. It needs to be really strong, or I feel like the book will be weak or lame. The last line of this book is really strange and cryptic. I didn’t understand it at all when I read it, but it got me interested, because I wanted to know how it would make sense. And when you read the book through to the end, it does make sense. It was like a little ah-ha moment for me. I get it now! That kind of thing. So the last line was good.
I ended up liking Matched. I didn’t want to put the book down. Which is always a good sign. It’s possible for this book to stand alone, although it would end at a killer cliff hanger. It’s going to be a trilogy though (aren’t all books these days? Not that I’m really complaining), so I’m left waiting for the next book, just as I was left waiting to read Matched. Hopefully the next book measures up to this one, in all areas (including cover art, because the cover art for Matched was really cool). Final word? Cute, meaningful story. It makes you think, and it gets some emotion out of you too. All around good. And the contest between Xander and Ky makes it that much more entertaining. (Ky is better!)
Real Teen Rating ~ A-: Read it!
Reviewed by Dream Catcher
First off, you should know that I LOVE dystopian stories. Dystopia (in literature) is an often (meaning 99.99% of the time) futuristic society that has degraded into a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian. Yes. That’s dystopian for you, courtesy of wikipedia because all of the definitions on dictionary.com were stupid. So anyways I love that kind of thing. Futuristic government consiparcies and too-advanced technology and the supposed “perfect society”. Whenever I hear about a book like that I drop whatever I’m currently reading and find out more about that because, seriously, who doesn’t want to read a book that makes modern-day-society seem perfect? So when I heard what Matched was about I was obviously excited to read it.
Plot in one word: dystopian. Kidding. More like interesting. That’s such a boring word, though. Ooh I found some synonyms at thesaurus.com. Here they are: riveting, enthralling, engaging, compelling. I’ll stop there. Compelling was the best, it most described the plot, I think. Either way, the plot was interesting and very dystopian. I love the thought of being matched, but at the same time I hated it. Imagine just being told you were perfect for someone. Being told that you would love them. Horrible. There’s no falling in love; there’s just “Okay, I’ll love this person, they are my match, after all”. Not fair. But at the same time eveything would be so much easier. Being matched wasn’t only to a person, but a job, too. Officials picked what kind of job you would have. Again; good and bad. No one’s out of a job. But you don’t get to pick, either, or do what you love. Like if someone wanted to be a writer they couldn’t because there was no writing anymore. If someone wanted to be a singer they couldn’t because there was no singing anymore. Shudder. I guess that was my long and winded way of saying that the concept of being matched to someone was captivating. Their whole world was really facinating, so, in that, the plot was good.
Characters. Eh. In my opinion Cassia wasn’t the best. Her character was flat and kind of bland. She kept clinging to her society and that was annoying. She was also kind of clueless. She wouldn’t get what was happening until the second after it was too late. It just didn’t make for a very strong main character. To give credit where it is due, though, there was some character development, so by the end of the book she was a much stronger character. So that was good. Xander was sweet and caring, but since he was introduced as the best friend, I never thought of him as anything more than that. So, even though they were matched, I thought it was bizare that Cassia kept trying to convince herself that they were completely perfect for each other. Kind of annoying. I know that’s not his fault but I was annoyed he kept hanging on, too. Ky was good character. He was my favorite character because he was mysterious and didn’t go along with everything in the Society. He was a good, strong character. Cassia’s family and her friend Em were pretty good yet average characters. But I think that’s to be expected from non-main characters. Cassia’s grandfather was one of the better characters, I think. He was strong and wise in his own grandfatherly way. The real problem I had with the characters was that I didn’t feel connected to them at all. Something would happen and I’d think oh, well, I guess that’s sad. Or exciting, or dramatic, or whatever. Mostly the characters were a little bland. Maybe that was purposeful – to go along with a perfect/bland society – but it didn’t seem right. But overall they were pretty good characters.
What bothered me most about this book – what made me give it such a low grade – was the writing itself. If the writing style had been different I would have really enjoyed the book. But it wasn’t. It was stiff and too-formal sounding. Now maybe the author wrote it like this on purpose. Trying to make Cassia sound as if she really was from her straight-forward, no-nonsense society. And if that’s the case…coolio. Wonderful. Spot-on. But the author had to keep in mind who was going to read this. Regular teenagers. Not Society ones. She still has to make the character relatable through the writing (it was in first person, after all) and in that, I feel, is where she failed. But I know the North Star and Living Destiny didn’t have a problem with the writing at all. So maybe I’m just being picky. I tend to be when it comes to writing. But there’s got to be someone out there who thinks like I do…right? Maybe they’ll agree with me.
First and last lines. Utterly important, right? Right. So the first line is pretty good. I think there are better ways she could have started off a story like this one, but she’s the author, not me. So if she thinks its pure brilliance, then sure, it’s pure brilliance. I just think its average. It didn’t really make me want to read it any more than when I first picked up the book, but it could’ve been worce. First line: “Now that I’ve found the way to fly, which direction should I go into the night?”. I think the thing I don’t like about it is that it asks a question. Who is she asking? Herself? I dunno, I found that weird. Now the end line is as important as the first. It can change how you remember the book. Like if a book was good but it had a really bad last line, you’re going to remember that terrible line, and maybe forget some other part of the book that was actually good. So, the last line’s extremely important. When I read it, at first I loved it (I always read the ending line second, right after the first). It was cool and cryptic and overall really good. But when I was reading the book through I realized that she’d already said the ending line three or four times before the end! Why would you do that? It just made the whole ending paragraph feel redundent! So that was annoying. You’ll see what I mean if you read it.
Now there was this poem that repeatedly kept coming up in the story. Like a theme. At first I thought it was a really nice touch – because poetry can be really beautiful - but it came up to many times for my liking. Too much. It got to be annoying, like some chant used in the right context and wrong. It almost replaced the characters emotions at times. Like instead of writing about what Cassia was feeling, or something, she would put in a few lines of the poem in italics. Like Cassia was saying them to herself. It was okay, but just a little over the top at times, I think.
Overall the book was pretty good, but nothing special. In my opinion. If you’re looking for a good dystopian book, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this one, but I wouldn’t beg you not to read it, or anything like that. It was a book that wasn’t quite memorable for being good or for being bad. That’s all there is to it. But I think the second in the trilogy will be better. Few short words on the cover and title. On a scale of very coolio (meaning AWESOME) to not coolio (meaning bad). Cover: pretty coolio – I think they could have done a little better. Title: coolio – not the best title ever but still good. I love one-word titles. So, yeah. The book was pretty good and I want to read the second! Cliff-hanger (kinda)!
Real Teen Rating~ C+ : Well I guess it was good…
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