What I Liked
I like Ally Condie's writing. She uses beautiful symbols, even through simple things like colors, and this makes Cassia's narrative voice stand out. I loved Condie's emphasis on the value of poetry and culture. The cherished poems never felt corny, only precious.

One of the most powerful scenes of the book was when

Spoiler

Cassia saw Ky crying during the showing of the Outer Regions, where people were being gunned down. Later, she asked him about it and realized for the first time that those scenes were real. Everyone in the community had laughed at them, assuming they were ridiculous exaggerations of violence and death. This struck me. It's easy to go to the movie theater and watch gruesome violence (honestly, even the news) without much thought or feeling. I often feel distanced from the horror; it's far away from where I comfortably live. The teens were unfazed by the graphic violence at the showing, but Ky was devastated because he knew it was real.

Another of my favorite things was Cassia's inner dialogue and doubts.

Spoiler

Her worry that she didn't start liking Ky until she found out that he was an Aberration, that maybe their fling was her form of teenage rebellion and desiring a "Forbidden Love." In that moment, Condie laid out what was sitting in the back of my mind and erased those doubts.

The romance was also bearable in this book. I was prepared for a love triangle (what I hate most about YA books), but it was fairly minor. It always drives me insane when a character is thinking, "Oh my gosh, who do I love more? I just can't decide!" because that must mean that she does not truly love either guy. However, Cassia's situation made sense. She was told to love one boy; she felt real attraction for another.

Spoiler

She never did seem to have a deep romantic connection with Xander, and that seemed clear from the very first few pages. Friendship love is different than romantic love.

There were only a few kisses in the entire book, which I appreciated. (Sorry, I just don't like to read awkwardly-detailed teenage make-out scenes.)

What I Didn't Like
The setting of Matched is not particularly intricate. I would appreciate more background to explain how society came to be this tightly controlled and why there is a war going on. Who is the real antagonist here? For such a controlled Society with an almost worshipful perspective of the government, surely they would know that there is a supreme leader or council or something. But throughout the book, the government is faceless, nameless, and empty of much threat. Even though the genre of this book is dystopian, there is very little tension wrapped up in the war or the government. Almost everything they did seemed overly-strict, but fairly humane. (We're going to take your prized possessions!... and put them in a museum where you can go see them wherever you like. We're going to euthanize you!... at a ripe old age and then we're going to try to resurrect you in a few years, don't worry.

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We lowered your meal portions to make you stressed out!... but don't worry, we made sure you got enough calories to be safe and healthy.

) There isn't a lot of malice in the Society. Never once was I afraid for Cassia's life.

Finally, I wish there would have been more of a recognizable arc to the story. I understand that this is a trilogy, but there was never a real climax or enlightenment moment

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possibly the "I love you"/kiss scene, but that was pretty brief

for Cassia. Some really great tension was building through

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the continuous stream of contraband poetry, writing, and an illegal artifact in an extremely observed and controlled society

. There was so much potential for everything to collapse on top of Cassia, but nothing really did.

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Xander instantly forgave her and helped her. Nobody found out about the writing or the artifact or the secret kiss with Ky.

Even the problems left in the cliffhanger weren't caused by Cassia's mistakes, only by the bad, faceless government that is seen as one white-dressed mass of lukewarm evil.

Overall
Matched gets 4 stars because the story kept me entertained, I grew to love the characters, I appreciated Condie's writing style, and I am already eager to read the next book in the trilogy. Just don't look too deep.