“The two desires struggle within me: the desire to be safe, and the desire to know. I cannot tell which one will win.”
Cassia lives in a future society where nothing is left to chance. The Society knows everything, especially what is best for you. The Society controls everything from where you work, what you eat, who you will marry and even when you die. Cassia believes in the beauty and ease of her world until after her matching ceremony she sees not just her best friend Xander-who was her official match-but also another boy. One that she also knows.
What I liked about Match was the realistic way in which we watch Cassia, for lack of better term, wake up. She starts out naive and trusting in this perfect world where the Society just wants everyone to be happy and equal. The emotions brought by loss, a gift of something as dangerous as forbidden words and a potential love not foreseen by the Society is enough to bring Cassia into a storm of uncertainty and growth. The secondary characters are nicely developed and do not conform to where we expect them to go in a typical dystopia. An introspective novel that encourages thought about the directions society can take us if we let it. Fans of the Hunger Games or the Giver will most likely eat this one up. 2010, 384 pages.
