Recently we finished reading the novel Matched a 366 dystopian romance by Ally Condie.  The novel Matched is about a girl named Cassia who is Matched with someone who she is happy with at first. Then someone comes into her life and Cassia is having second thoughts about her match. Throughout the book Cassia brings us through her life and the hard choice she has to make. Cassia takes a risky path that nobody else has ever taken. This book has won many awards some including Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults. Matched was also a New York Times Bestseller. Ally Condie lives in Utah with her 4 children and her husband. Ally Condie graduated from Brigham Young University. Condie has had many nominations including Edgar Award for Best Juvenile , Goodreads Choice Awards Best Middle Grade and Children’s. Ally Condie has written many books some of them being Crossed, Reached , Being Sixteen, Summerlost and 10 more. This book was good  and I would read it again.

 

In the novel Matched the government wants to create a perfect society for the people. The government’s goal is to  create a world with no complications or worries about death. In the novel the government chooses who you are matched with, where you work and when you die. When you are matched, you are matched with the person who you will spend the rest of your life with. They also determine how many kids you will have once you get married and the government give you three pills; red, blue, green. These pills can only be used at certain times during her life. The main character Cassia is happy with who she is matched with until someone comes into her life. When this happens Cassia no longer likes her match. Cassia is having second thoughts about what to do with her match. When this starts happening to Cassia she notices how unfair it is that they don’t get to pick their match. She must now make a choice between Xander and Ky, what is she willing to risk to have a true happy life?

 

The main character’s name is Cassia. She is a 17 year old teenager. She was more than excited to receive her match. A match is when the government picks who you marry. You have no choice who it is. In the beginning of the book, she was very nice and a sweet person. She is very caring and respects everyone. After her grandfather dies at age 80. She begins holding the responsibility of keeping  secret her grandfather did not want her telling anyone about. She turns into a liar, and sneaks around, which is not like her normal self. This mood change took place after her grandfather died. Right before he died, he told her a secret that she must keep to herself. This lead her to feel unsure about what to do and this was when she started to not ask like herself.

 

The genre of this book is dystopian. A dystopian genre is a fictional writing and it is a perfect society/world. In a dystopian novel there are certain aspects that only apply to that society. In this novel when you turn 17 the government decides your match which will be the person who you end up marrying. The government also decides when you die and they give you certain pills to take at certain times. This relates to a dystopian novel because in this society this is there perfect world. In a dystopian novel there are certain features of their society and that’s what makes it a perfect world. If this book was a different genre this book would be completely different. Since this book is dystopian which has certain features the book wouldn’t be the same at all since there wouldn’t be any features. We don’t think that this book would be as good if it was a different genre because the dystopian features is what made the book more interesting and enjoyable to read. Having this book a different genre would make the book be completely different and less interesting.

 

We liked the way the author used a good word choice. Since the author used a good choice of vocabulary it made the book more interesting to read. When the author used big words in the book it made the book sound more interesting as well. We also liked how when parts got boring in the book the author add a lot of suspense to make the book really interesting again. When this happened in the novel a big part in the book would come up which would make me want to read more.

 

This passage takes place when the main characters Ky and Cassia are hiking in the woods together. They were assigned to be hiking buddies. In this day’s task, they were doing a team building activity of building a tower made of rocks. This passage stuck out to me because of the description used to describe Cassias feelings for Ky. “When I put the last rock on top of the pile, Ky puts his hand over mine. I do not pull it away. I do not want anything to fall and I like the feeling of his rough warm hand on top of mine with the cool smooth surface of the rocks underneath. Then I turn my hand slowly so that my palm is up and our fingers intertwine.” (page 240). The description used made me understand her feelings to a realistic level. We rate this book a 6 out of 10. We thought the book had a great story line but at times got boring and there wouldn’t be a lot of action. In the beginning the book was really good then it started to get really boring throughout the novel.

From,

Claire, Kayleigh, Sofia and Callie