In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.
I picked this book up at a thrift store MANY years ago and haven’t touched it since. It just never really called to me until the other day. After reading the synopsis on the back of the book I basically knew what to expect and I don’t think I reached for it for so long because I get so bored with angst-y teenage love triangles. Finally I was staring at my bookshelves looking for something to read since I ran out of library books and just decided I needed to read Matched or I needed to start getting rid of the books I’ve had longest on my shelves.
This book was a delight. From start to finish it was quick paced and (shocker!) I never found myself bored. From the first couple chapters I became hooked right away because it was giving me major The Giver vibes. Just like most human beings, The Giver is one of my favorite books of all time so if I’m seeing a setting that is familiar I’m going to have a good time. Dystopian is my cup of tea and regardless of the obvious love triangle involved, so was Matched.
The characters were kind of cut and paste YA but for some reason it just flowed for me. I was okay with the two love interests, I was okay with our main character being so predictable. None of the characters were blow your mind amazing but they weren’t awful either.
The plot, the setting, the society, and the rules are really what had me interested. I found myself making a lot of guesses as to what was going to happen, but being thoroughly surprised throughout the book. This is an A+ for me because I love a good twist. The more twists the better, and with Matched it was certainly MORE than LESS twists.
I gave this book a 4 stars even though it’s probably closer to a 3.5. I was being generous because after I finished I needed MORE. After just a week of finishing Matched I’m now a proud owner of the entire series (thank you so much to my incredible boyfriend for buying them for me!) and I cannot wait to finish the series. Do I think it’s going to be one of my favorites of all time? No. This is more of a guilty pleasure read, much like The Selection series was for me. I’m absolute trash for it and I don’t even care.
