Does anyone remember the Matched trilogy? Cuz I remember the big debut of this book way back in third grade, and it was everywhere but it didn’t quite reach the same level of memorability as other dystopians like The Hunger Games or Divergent. Anyway, since I’m on a YA binge, I decided to read this and see how it holds up.

In the Society, everyone is happy. With their advanced technologies, Officials have been able to match everyone and everything for maximum efficiency, durability, etc. It is quite a minimalist world as the Society had come to the conclusion that there was too much choice and too much knowledge cluttering everyone, so they have distilled it to the Hundred Poems, Hundred Paintings, forbade the teaching of writing. Everyone is controlled and dependent on what the Society feeds them, they’re like sheep.

But people are living longer, more peaceful lives, so they’re okay with that. Everything is predicted and on Cassia Maria Reyes’ 17th birthday, she has the lucky coincidence of it also being her Matched banquet. A special rite of passage that young people go through where they meet their future mate, calculated to be the right person for you.

Cassia is thrilled to be a rare person who already knows her match, her childhood friend, Xavier. But when she returns home to read her microcard filled with Xavier’s information, another face appears. It is also a boy she knows, Ky Markham.

Cassia’s world is blown apart by this strange new face and her Grandfather’s final words, “You should wonder,” act as an impetus for her to act on this intriguing new option.

Cassia’s journey from complacent to rebellious teenager is gradual but relatable. At first, she is not interested in making waves and actually wishes she never saw that face, making her question everything. She swings back and forth between not risking her family and the happy life she has her. As she says, she wants to cling to everything she loves now rather than this scary new future filled with danger and choice. She questions herself for daring to be mad at the Society and being unhappy when they have provided so much good for everyone.

But there are cracks in the system and they’ve been there from the beginning. With the strange appearance of Ky in her microcard, she confides to her grandfather about the incident as he’s the only one who she’s allowed to tell because he’s dying by the end of the week. Her grandfather had been part of the system, but he encourages her to think more for herself, sharing his secret Dylan Thomas poem saved from incinaration. His actions and his sometimes rebellious thoughts prods Cassia’s realization that even though the Society controls everything and watches everyone in this surreal 1984-Big Brother world, they can’t control her thoughts. She should fight against the dying light.

So she gives in to her curiosity about Ky, whom she knows on the outskirts of their social circles. She learns that he’s an Aberration, someone who hadn’t even been put into the Match pool because of the sins of his father, pushed into the worst jobs and low positions in society. Yet she sees that he’s more than the average person he acts like.

Ky’s calm, steady, observant of everything so he can stay one step ahead of the Officials that watch his, and later, their every move. He can write, and he tells her his story of his life in the Outer Provinces before he was adopted. He gives her soemthing secret that is just between them. Cassia starts to see that being the holder of a story, of the secret to writing, is a strength. Being able to remember is something the Society can’t take away even though they have to burn the evidence.

Being able to have a choice is freeing and Cassia begins to question everything she has ever known. Yes, the Society seems good but isn’t the freedom of choice more freeing than the little crumbs, the illusion of freedom that the Society gives them.

But like I said, Officials are always watching and Cassia begins to feel the pressure as Officials close in, changing the borough, random Infraction checks, that signal that they’re trying to punish her. . . Or there is something more sinister brewing under the happy facade that Society pushes onto the people.

Condie creates an incredible world with distinct celebrations as rules that make it feel really dimensional as well it keeping up the suspense of Ky/Cassia’s clandestine romance.

Her writing is also. . . very beautiful. Almost like poetry in the way she describes imagery and Cassia’s feelings that is just makes a soothing, rhythmic read.

As for Xavier, who is left behind in the love triangle, Condie takes a moment to explore the different types of love and how choice plays into it, that Cassia knows if she had to, she could fall even more deeply in love with Xander as she already loves him for being her best friend and confidante so long. But she has to see this through with Ky, she has to follow her own wants, not the statistics or numbers of the Society.

Xander, despite his limited page time, is a worthy guy and Condie keeps him as a nuanced person when he could so easily be cast as a bitter, jealous boyfriend. Plus she weaves numerous scenes and secrets that irrevocable tie Cassia, Ky and Xander in different ways outside of the love triangle.

There’s also love for family as Cassia struggles with her disillusionment with Society and wonders if her parents’ match is true love when they seem to differ on obeying or rebelling in key decisions. Plus her grandfather, again whose death was very moving to me as he manages to have one last triumph, choosing his death for himself.

Condie created a unique dystopian I think, showing shades of communism/1984 with a nicely subverted love triangle that steps away from the annoying will-they-won’t they to focus on the power of memory, words and choice. I’m eager to see where Cassia’s journey takes her next.