Matched ~ Ally Condie

Apparently I didn’t get my fill of dystopian madness with the Hunger Games series, because the other day I came home from the library with Ally Condie’s Matched, another futuristic novel where the government controls all…or does it?

The story takes place in a bleak, futuristic world where everything from how much and what food you can eat, what you wear, what you do with your “free” time, where you work, who you will marry, and when you will die is controlled by the government.

People's knowledge of the world is limited to what the government tells them. It is a very minimalistic society and everything from past history has been pared down to 100: 100 books, 100 songs, 100 poems, 100 paintings, etc. Everything else has been destroyed.

Around a person’s 17^th birthday, he or she attends a special banquet where couples are matched through data that has been collected about each individual. This is the person you will marry, no questions asked. Each person is given a data card with information about their match, and when Cassia, the heroine of the book, receives her card, she is surprised to find not one, but two matches. One is her best friend Xander, while the other is Ky, a boy who has been classified as an aberration, and therefore cannot be matched.

This sends her on a quest to find out why she has two matches, even though the government is quickly tries to cover it up and warns her of trouble if she continues asking questions.

At the same time, Cassia's grandfather dies. Death happens on your 80^th birthday, no matter what, if you are still alive. But before he dies, Cassia's grandfather slips her a poem by Dylan Thomas that he has somehow saved that begins "Do not go gentle into the night / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."The mixed-up match, along with her grandfather’s death, and the word of the poem telling her to fight seem to be the impetus needed for Cassia to begin to rebel against the system. And I can’t tell you where it leads, because that would ruin the end of the book if you decide to read it.

The story continues in Crossed, which I am going to have to read, because Matched kind of leaves you hanging at the end. Check it out if you want a calmer, less violent dystopian story than the Hunger Games.