Matched by Ally Condie.
A society that is all about systems. They control who you love, where you live, where you work, what you do at your spare time; even when you die. Control is the main word, yet of course that is not how all see it.
Cassia a girl that always believed and trusted the system. Xander a boy who knew how to survive perfectly within the society. And Ky a boy who they never let out of their sight, who had perfected the art of being right in the middle, not bad nor good just okay.
“Once you want something, everything changes.”
I had been meaning to read this book ever since I laid eyes on it. I thought the cover was simple yet beautiful, but seeing as I get sick and tired of books based in a dystopian future I put it off for a long time. Then on my way to London a few weeks ago I was bored and decided I'd give the book a try. I read it each night without fail but when I got home I left it alone for a while. I finally finished the book and was pleasantly surprised that I loved the ending.
Ally Condie's writing is not the best writing I have ever come across, but it is pretty. She wrote a society none of us would ever want to live in, yet she made the readers hate but love the world she had created. A world where all were equal, where there were no diseases - a world unlike the one we live in yet lacking all the good qualities we do have, underneath all the hate and war.
“Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?”
Cassia - the main character in this book, and the one who's point of view it is written in. I loved watching her grow as a character throughout this book. She grew from someone who believed and agreed with what she was told, to someone who questioned and disagreed with the society she's apart of. Yet Ally Condie made sure she never lost that teenage spirit that's within all of us.
It was a beautiful thing watching Cassia fall in love with Ky, almost magical. I loved how Ally Condie wrote the parts about Ky teaching Cassia to write, it made me realise how lucky we are to be able to do something like write we take it for granted every day of our lives. The way Cassia felt when she wrote with a stick in the mud was something we could never truly grasp as readers, as people who know how to write since we were very small but I think Ally wrote it perfectly.
I felt heartbroken for Xander in the final pages of this book. The way he loved Cassia unconditionally broke my heart. He was such a beautiful boy with so much to offer the world and everything I had thought about him from day one faded in those final words of his. He changed into someone much more than another brainwashed person the society had created. He was someone who broke the rules for those he loved, he was someone who put aside his jealousy for the sake of others.
The way Ky had been treated all his life tore me apart. He deserved so much more than how he had been treated. The way he opened up to Cassia through pictures and words made my heart fill with happiness. He was a beautiful, drool-worthy boy that I wanted Cassia to never stop kissing.
“We could have been happy. I know that, and it is perhaps the hardest thing to know.”
I also have not just my English teacher for this year, but this book to thank for the respect I have gained recently for poets and their poetry. It isn't easy to write a story that is less than a page long (usually), that can inspire people and make them feel things they have never felt before. The way Ally brought poetry into this book was something I haven't seen before and it was beautiful.
This book gets 3 out of 5 stars from me. I can't give it the five because it didn't draw me in, in ways other books have and the book reminded me a lot of Delirium by Lauren Oliver - not saying either of them took stuff from the other but dystopian books always seem to turn out looking a bit alike.
I would recommend that you all pick this book up and at least give it a try.
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