Title: Matched
Author: Ally Condie
Number of Pages: 366
Number of Stars I'm Giving: 1.5
Give me a B,
Give me an O,
Give me an R,
Give me an ING,
What does that spell???
Matched.
I have to write this review before I go to book club tonight, or else my opinion might become skewed!
Before I begin bashing this book, I will say 3 good things about it.
#1 - It has a nice cover.
#2 - The language and content are 99% clean.
#3 - The concept of this book was interesting (although not too original).
I don't have a real big issue with this plot not being original. Many very good books have basically the same story line. It just seems that some authors can pull off the same story line much better than others...think Jane Austen. Ally Condie was a former English teacher. If I were to score her on this book, I would give her a D. Sure everything was spelled correctly, but shouldn't an English teacher know that a plot needs to have 3 things? A beginning, a middle, and an end. She must have gotten really caught up in the beginning because this book NEVER moves past it. You could have compressed this entire book into about 5 chapters and then added a really good story on the end of it. There was very little conflict in the book and there was zero conflict resolution. When the highlight of the book consists of people walking up the same hill over and over again and writing in the dust with sticks, you know it's not the most exciting book on the planet. The author gave no reasons why the characters love each other. She just tells you they do and you are supposed to care about them after that. Cassie, the main character comes across as selfish. Anyone who has any kind of affair can only be described as selfish. The thing I hated most about this book was the author kept alluding to Cassie rebelling against the society. She never did. Not even once. She thought about it, but she was never brave enough to do it. No one rebelled in this book.
They all just rolled over and did whatever they were told.
This book leaves so many questions unanswered.
Who were they at war with?
Who were the leaders of this society?
If they were so technologically and physically advanced, why were they losing the war?
If they were truly losing the war, why didn't the civilians in the society see more signs of war?
Was there a food shortage?
Why did Xander forgive Cassie when he knew she was having an affair?
How did Cassie's dad, mom, official, and Xander know that she loved Ky?
Why was everyone portrayed as being happy in the society?
Why were they cutting down all of the trees?
Why did they take everyone's artifacts away?
Why wear a beautiful dress to meet your match if they can only see you from the waist up?
Why did matched couples have to have an escort on a date,
but "singles" could whomever they wanted at anytime?
Did they sterilize everyone they didn't want to reproduce or did they practice abortions routinely?
What would the society do to a baby born to 2 perfectly healthy parents if it had a defect?
If Cassie was the best sorter, why didn't the society keep her when they sent her family away?
What the heck is a sorter? And why does the society need sorters when there are computers?
Why can Cassie read, but doesn't know how to write letters?
How dumb is Casie if it took her a long time to learn how to write the letter K?
What did Xander and Ky see in Cassie anyways?
If Xander really loved Cassie then why was it so easy for him to let her go?
How can grown men be expected to pull off names like Xander and Ky?
(Ooops, sorry that's just an opinion of mine. They are great names for 10 year olds though!)
Since when is 80 considered a hard age to achieve?
Why, why, why didn't Cassie ever rebel???
I am getting pretty annoyed with these book series being written simply because the author hopes it will become a movie or an easy series to sell to a mindless group of teenagers so that he/she can make millions of dollars. Where have our societies expectations of quality gone?!?
Like any good totalitarian society all religion was cut from these peoples lives. Freedom was exchanged for the illusion of security. And the society trained people to do and not to think. The society demonized and removed any people who disagreed with their view of perfection.
Sadly I see much of this happening in our society today. I realize this book was science fiction, but I felt it was a coming reality as I was reading it. So that is my 2 or 3 cents on this book. If you choose to read it, don't worry it won't waste too much of your time because it is so simply written. Just don't expect an exciting story about rebelling against an oppressive government.
