Do Not Go Quiet into an Unchosen Life - A Review of Ally Condie's Matched

I’m playing a bit of catch up with my young adult fiction reading. Matched by Ally Condie was published in 2011, but the book still hits the mark today, if not more so.

Cassie lives in the Society, a perfect community where everything, and I mean everything, is decided by upper officials, probability, and statistics. In the Society, there’s no need to think about what’s for dinner; meals are delivered to everyone’s home with the precise portioning needed to maintain optimal body mass percentage. Jobs are dealt out by the Society based on skill aptitude exhibited. Even people’s partner and home are chosen by algorithms and the Society. It seems, in the Society, that the only thing a person really gets to choose is whether they will marry and have a family, or stay single forever, a choice they must make before their seventeenth birthday when the Society pairs off the future breeders.

Matched begins with Cassie on the way to her matching ceremony where she will learn of the person she will eventually marry. Cassia is nervous and excited. She has dreamed of her matching ceremony and the carefully monitored courtship that will follow her whole childhood. When it comes her turn to step in front of the screen to glean a glimpse of her future match, she is surprised to find she already knows the boy on the screen, her best friend Xander.

Immediately, Cassia’s world is changed. Up until that point she’d only ever thought of Xander as a friend, but now they were matched. A door to a whole new kind of relationship has been opened. Eager to see if she knows Xander as well as she things she does, Cassia load her matched chip into her home port as soon as she has a minute alone. But Xander’s picture isn’t the only one that comes up on the port screen. Ky Markham’s face flashes briefly on the screen before disappearing. Cassia only sees Ky’s face on the screen for a second, but that’s all it takes to set her mind whirring.

Is Xander her true match or is she supposed to be matched to Ky?

Despite reassurance from the officials that Xander is her proper match, and Ky’s image appearing on her chip was purely a mistake, Cassia can’t help but wonder if it’s true. When Cassia and Ky end of sharing a leisure activity for the summer, their friendship quickly develops into something more. Cassia shares a forbidden poem, smuggled to her by her grandfather, and Ky teaches Cassia the dead art of handwriting.

As her feelings for Ky grow, she finds herself with a choice: remain with Xander and have the content peaceful life the Society has planned for her, or choose Ky, love, passion, and uncertainty. Will Cassie choose to go peaceful into the night? Or will she “rage against the dying of the light” (Thomas)?

Ally Condie’s Matched contains many powerful themes, urging readers to question not only the fictional Society but our own world as well. As Cassia and Ky’s love grows, Cassia learns what it truly means to have something worth fighting for. For Ky, Cassia is willing to give up everything, but can she give up her family’s safety? Cassia ultimately learns that despite what the Society may want people to thing, there is always a choice.

The cover image for Matched is a perfect depiction of the main theme of the novel. On the cover Cassia is trapped, in her pretty, match ceremony gown, inside the clean bubble that is the Society. It’s only after she decides to break from the Society’s choices and wishes that she herself is truly free, even if only in my mind.

Ally Condie’s characters and storytelling in Matched are both vivid and believable. While the Society and its rules are clearly major exaggerations, it is possible to see bits of today’s world and culture with the Society’s customs. Our career may not be selected for us like it is in Matched, but so many young people feel the pressure to attend university immediately after high school, even if they have no idea what they want to do with their lives. Young people, like Cassia attending her matching ceremony, just trust that society knows what is best for them.

Though Matched is a dystopian novel, and Cassia does eventually break from the Society’s ideals, it is refreshing to see her take a step back and realized the dangers of making a sudden physical break from the norm. Instead of diving headfirst after what she wants, Cassia exercises maturity of mind to develop a plan that will not only get her what she wants but protect herself and her family.

Ally Condie’s Matched is an important read for people of all ages, encouraging readers to think and make their own choices, go after what they want, and to not sit idly by and let their life be lived for them by outside officials.

Thomas, Dylan. “Do not go gentle into that good night.” The Poems of Dylan Thomas. New Directions, 1971.