ARC Review- Matched by Ally Condie

Details: Hardcover, 384 pages (I read an ARC)
Published: To be published November 30, 2010 by Dutton Juvenile

isbn: 0525423648 (ISBN13: 9780525423645)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Received from: Another blogger for review

Description:

In the Society, Officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die. 

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s barely any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion. 

My Thoughts:

Matched is the kind of book that as soon as your only a few pages in your taking notes in your head for your review.  This time around, since I know those notes fly out of my head faster then I can process them, I'm starting my review when I'm still reading it.

This book is amazing.  I've found I'm a little afraid of dystopian.  It's deep thinking, it's horrifying, it's just plain hard to read because so much of the time it's conceivable, it could happen.   And that is terrifying.  But so often it is also action packed and it's hard to watch, but yet impossible to put down.

Matched is different.  It's still horrifying, but it's not action packed.  It's not terrifying in the sense that your afraid of people surviving.  But it's hard to watch how the society has perfected everything.  They pick who you marry, if you choose to marry; they provide you with your meals, made specifically for you;  they tell you what you'll do for work, what you'll wear, where you'll go.  There's only 100 poems, and 100 songs left for the people to enjoy.  No more clutter, they say.   People can't even write anymore!  They have machines that do it for them.

Cassia is so trusting.  That's just how things are and she doesn't seem to question them.  At least not until her Match is made and she see's another person flash on the screen.  And then other things start to show themselves to her.  I mean, it's like she begins to wake up.

Suddenly she sees it's not right to have all her decisions made for her.  To not be able to express yourself.  To not write, to not choose how much you want to eat.  In little ways she starts to rebel.

The love story is so sweet and gentle.  That might sound funny, but it really is.  You don't really know if they'll do anything about their feelings so it was interesting watching them make decisions.  

This was not a predictable story.  It was impossible to know where things would and could go.  Every single character was very interesting and it was a challenge trying to figure them out.  Everyone had to at least outwardly follow all the rules.  It isn't until later that you find out who the rule breakers are.

Now that I've finished the book and came back to the review I can say this is easily on my favorites list for this year.   This book was far and beyond any expectations I could have possibly had.  

The ending was not a conclusion but not a horrible cliffhanger.  Things are definitely not resolved though and I can't wait for more!
I give this one 5/5 moons!

You can find Ally Condie on her website | twitter |

I received this book for review.  The opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid nor influenced in any way.