COLUMN: “Matched” is worth a look
I was walking through The Book Table last spring when I first ran across a display with the young-adult novel “Matched.” Being familiar with Allison Condie, who has written a number of hyper-local young-adult novels, I only glanced at the book and hurried off to my interview.
I finally picked up the book up over Christmas break. I honestly didn’t expect much, seeing as most of Condie’s books focus on high school life. Even being a New York Times Best Seller, I didn’t expect it to be more than some female version of “Back to the Future.” A few hours and a couple hundred pages into the book, I was wishing I had hadn’t waited seven months to start it.
If you, like me, judge this book by it’s cover — or even the description on the back of the book — it will simply appear to be a girlish future-set fantasy. Shun me if you must, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the wildly popular “Hunger Games” series, and, at first glance, “Matched” seems to have an incredibly similar plot. A teenage girl caught in a society trying to suppress her true personality, all while she deals with a love triangle sound familiar? I thought so.
The story follows Cassia, a 17-year-old girl, as she deals with a government that makes life choices for her. Aptly called the Society, the government tells her and her family how to eat, what to study and how to work, while hiding the war happening in the outside world. As her matching approaches, the day she is scientifically placed with a mate compatible for her, she worries that she will be placed with somebody lower than herself by the Society’s terms. Surprise ensues when she finds her match. At first she is pleased with him, but as the Society begins to tighten it’s grasp, she slowly loses her innocence. The story takes a wild twist when she meets the rebellious outsider Ky, who changes the way she sees her world.
One thing that sets this book apart from it’s all-too-well-known, teen-fiction drama is the depth of the characters. The skillful way Condie has them play off one another’s emotions was one of my favorite aspects of the book. The characters run deeper than the page, as with any good story.
One of the passable, but incredibly important characters in the story is Cassia’s grandfather, who dies at the beginning of the novel before most of the plot ensues. In one of the most touching scenes of the story, he talks to Cassia while on his deathbed. Because he tasted freedom in his youth, before the Society came to be, he attempts to tell Cassia a small part of the truth about the world in which she lives. He slips Cassia a compact as his gift to her before he dies. Little does she know it is this artifact that holds the key to her own freedom.
“Matched” is a good book for a rainy day or a long plane ride, but it’s not something I would pick up if I wanted to be intellectually stimulated. The writing was wonderful and did provide some insights into our own society and economy, but the plot dragged in places. The book’s sequel “Crossed” was released last November. While it will go on my book list, it’s nothing I’m running to the bookstore to buy. I’ll admit, “Matched” was a book I couldn’t put down. However, it was more to get to the end than out of actual enjoyment. Pick it up when you have time, but don’t expect it to blow your mind. I’m hoping “Crossed” has a little bit of a faster pace.
– allee.evensen@aggiemail.usu.edu