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Reviews for Matched

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  • amazing5

    andreia curado i really love this book, one of my favorites! by andreia curado

  • A good selection of classical and new dystopian elements!3

    MissPageTurner Everyone around the blogosphere seemed to be enthusiastic about Matched so I was really looking forward to read it. Unfortunately I didn't get to like this novel as much as all the Cassie & Ky or Xander fans out there.

    At first glance Condie created a very interesting setting of a dystopian novel, featuring classical elements and new ones, inhuman and sterile. Citizens are not allowed to show deeper sentimental reactions in public and rarely at home, that they care for someone or something beyond a superficial level. The individual stands back to the society's benefits, and that I can call a successful adaption of a dystopian background to our story around heroine Cassia. What I found most disturbing is the exact controlling of the death date of each citizen.

    Cassia, the obedient citizen in the beginning, starts questioning the system when a picture of Ky instead of her promised match appears on her monitor. After the mistake, she starts noticing him and tries to understand the true Ky. They spend time together, learn about each other and who they really are.
    A relation between Cassia, Ky and Xander is obvious, but not really a love triangle as I couldn't see feelings beyond friendship between Cassia and Xander in the beginning.

    I wish the love story would be a more dominant part of Matched. I am a hopeless romantic and expected this novel to be more specific and detailed when it comes to the rarely featured love scenes. As other novels describe the scene of the lover's meeting vividly, Condie describes a kiss or a hug as a fact and not the act of many different emotions, tastes, smells and feelings coming together.
    This lack of emotional details and description of romantic scenes, might be attribute to the dystopian character of minimalism when it comes to deeper feelings and meanings or a major sign of Condie's average writing style.

    The society of Matched is divided into different groups of workers and their complexity of thoughts and actions are reduced to guarantee a simple but secure standard.
    Condie's writing style is as simple as her created society, it is not my favourite but at least supports the story's character well.

    One aspect I really liked about Matched is that Ky and Cassia find and interpret old symbols and art in a world that doesn't know their meaning anymore. People have forgotten what a compass or handwriting is and now it is on both of them to turn something so uncommon into their weapon against a meaningless and indifferent government.

    Surprises are rare as we follow a steady rhythm and the first three hundred pages replay a certain routine. The tide of this novel is low, and I drifted on it slowly from moment to moment. I got an appropriate impression of Cassia's life and her district, but almost felt annoyed by this novel's slow pace always expecting something more spectacular happen on the next page.

    In the last eighty or so pages speed picked up and I found myself in the middle of action, thinking: "Dear action, there you are, but why haven't you showed up two hundred pages earlier!?"

    THE VERDICT

    Matched can be described as a light romance with main interest on dystopian setting, so this novel definitely is a recommendable read for fans of dystopian tellings of all stripes. I am going to read the sequel when it comes out, but with much less pre- enthusiasm than I felt toward Matched. by MissPageTurner

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