Ally Condie’s Matched hooked me right away. Set in a futuristic dystopia (a cross between the world of The Giver and the world of The Hunger Games), the novel opens as 17-year-old Cassia prepares for her Matching Banquet. At the banquet, she will see the face of the young man the Society has chosen as her husband. When she sees the face of her close friend Xander, she could not be happier.
The next day, though, when she loads the datacard that will give her more information about her Match (something that is hardly necessary in Cassia’s case, since she has known Xander all her life), she sees the face of another boy. Another boy she knows. What does this mean? Has the Society made a mistake? How should she feel about this other boy?
Matched develops a scary and engrossing vision of the future: careers (like marriages) are arranged by the Society, literature has been reduced to the Hundred Poems, people no longer learn how to write (as technology has made handwriting obsolete), citizens carry three mysterious pills with them at all times, and everyone dies peacefully at the age of 80. When her grandfather dies, passing some final words and a forbidden poem to Cassia, the novel’s young protagonist starts to question the perfection of the Society.
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I am reading it right now. I wish school hadn’t started yesterday because I would love to spend the day reading it. It has snagged me in. I want to know what is going to go on between Xander, Ky, and Cassie.