REVIEW: Matched by Ally Condie

Sorry I haven't updated in ages, been very busy with school! I'll hope to be posting more frequently in the coming weeks. Anyway, here's the review:

Matched is Ally Condie's first major novel, a dystopian novel, set in a civilisation where at the age of 17 you are 'Matched' with another person. It's setting is in a futuristic society where your choices, actions and moves are controlled by government 'Officials' in order to maintain a perfect society. It is based around a girl called Cassia who is 'matched', however, she finds herself falling in love with someone else...

I was drawn to reading this book (and its cover) the moment I heard of

it, I've always loved dystopian novel (i.e. Uglies, The Hunger Games, Brave New World) and this sounded right up my street! Unfortunately, I was quite dissapointed with this novel, which surprised me. I found that the pace of the story was quite slow, it wasn't hard to put down. I thought it would get better throughout the novel but that didn't really happen. There were no high tension or action scenes which you would expect from a dystopian novel. I know that you don't want action all the time but I felt that was lacking in Matched.

As for the main character, Cassia, I felt there was development from her from the start to the end but the romance between her and Ky didn't feel realistic enough. She didn't seem to be in love with Ky. Furthermore, I didn't feel there was much emotion emitted from the character, I didn't feel any of the raw emotions that I usually feel in romance novels. This may be due to the writing style the author used which was quite plain - first person, short, simple sentences.

However, I found still find the idea very interesting. The idea of society being that way, everything being controlled - what you eat, what you wear, how many children you have, when you die etc. It makes you think what things would really be like if you couldn't make choices in life. The author presented this picture to the audience well.

As for the ending, I thought it was interesting. It didn't necessarily leave me craving for more but I am intrigued to know what will happen in the next part (Crossed - out Nov 2011) of the trilogy.

Plot: 3.5/5
Characters: 3/5
Ending: 3.5/5
Writing: 3/5
Cover (love it!) : 5/5

Overall: 3/5