Matched

Author: Allie Condie
Rating: 4/5 Stars
Summary: Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate . . . until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow. (From Goodreads.com)



Review: I really wanted to love this book, and I started out loving it. Dystopian novels are my favorite genre, and I'd been looking forward to reading this since it was first mentioned it was an upcoming novel, back in the spring.
    The story stared out with the main character, Cassia, going to her Match Banquet, where in the Society, is where the government will match you up with your perfect partner to marry and have kids with. Her childhood friend gets matched with her, and first they are happy, but there is a suposed "malfunction" in the device that tells you about your match. Her friend shows up instead, and she gets really curious about him, since he isn't from her town. I really liked her original match, Xander, and he and Cassia started out all couple-y. But then she almost became obsessed with hanging out with Ky and learning about his background. All she could think about was Ky. When she was at work, or at home, or hanging out with friends, all she wanted to do was "learn more of Ky's story". I was kind of sick of it. I didn't even like Ky. He was not very nice and had almost no personality. In my opinion, Xander was way better for her, but she practically ignored him the whole book.
     The society in which Matched is set in was also a little confusing. Nothing is explained of how it came to be and why all the culture is gone. Everything is plain and everyone is the same. It's a bad thing to be unique in this world. In other dystopian novels, the author gives an explanation of how the world got to be like that, but in Matched, the author just jumped into it without explaining anything.
     This is a series, but I don't know if I'll read the rest of it because I hate Ky so much.