Review of "Matched"

"Cassia Reyes, the Society is pleased to present you with your Match."

     In Ally Condie's Matched, everything in the Society is regulated. Who you marry. Where you work. When you die. Seventeen-year-old Cassia has been waiting for her Matching Ceremony her whole life, and the event has finally arrived. Everything is perfect: the feast, the dresses, the silverware. One by one, the Matchees' names are called and they rise, ready to view their spouse-to-be on the portscreen. Then they are handed a small silver box containing a microcard that lists everything there is to know about their Match: hobbies, skills, interests. But when Cassia rises, things are different. The screen doesn't light up, which means her Match is in that room. Cassia is Matched to Xander, her best friend, and she's ecstatic--until another face appears on her microcard, and she finds herself torn between two boys, and a decision that will change her life forever.

     The characters in Matched are very well-written. Cassia is a complex creature of shifting desires and motivations. She's torn between a safe, secure life with Xander and the freedom she has with her pseudo-Match, Ky. Xander, in turn, is good-natured and fun to read. Ky is a more mysterious character, full of secrets and hidden depths. Although this is supposed to be portrayed as a good thing, I have a hard time connecting with Ky because of it. Cassia's grandfather, however, is my favorite character by far: wise, mischievous, and insightful. Grandfather has a depth that none of the other characters possess, and it's written beautifully.

     Theoretically, Matched should have been a perfect read for me. It's all about a girl who discovers sinister secrets about her supposedly utopian society and must learn to fight against it. Even without the love triangle, the stage is set for some really great subterfuge, rebellion, and passionate arguments...except, those things don't come. Cassia spends most of her time hiking, watching her friends play games, and spending time with her family. The most dramatic point in the book is when her father loses an object of vital importance and the Officials search their house. This, in particular, was extremely disappointing.

     One of the contributing factors to Matched's passive nature is the prose. Condie's writing, though rich in detail, is written from a...well...passive point of view. The focus of the story is more on the illegal poems that Cassia finds in her grandmother's old compact than it is on what she's going to do about them. It doesn't help that Cassia is essentially a bystander character. She wants to fight back, but she doesn't know how to do so without disrupting the peaceful life she's grown to love. Our heroine has a hard time realizing she can't have her cake and eat it, too, and it's this docile attitude that holds the story back.

     An upside to this is that the characters in Matched are very well behaved. No one curses or swears, conversations are always appropriate--painfully so--and there is absolutely no violence. Compliments are always sincere, and nobody is malicious. Even the Officials, who make it their business to keep Cassia and Ky apart, don't hide barbs behind their words of concern.

     I would recommend Matched to anyone looking for a YA novel about totalitarian societies and rebelling in small ways. Although the characters are rather distant and the plot moves at a slow pace, the world is beautifully built and Cassia's inner struggle is interesting to see. While I wouldn't go so far as to say it's gripping, Ally Condie's Matched is certainly not one to skip over in your search for a good read. It sits at the upper end of three stars, held back only by the passivity of the prose.