Review Detail

A lot of people came to this book with preconceived ideas. Which is usually a bad way to start a book. I'm grateful I came to it without having read a single review, and only barely having skimmed the book blurb. It stood on its own, and on its own it was beautiful. The transition Cassia makes from contented subject to rebel is gradual and believable. Nothing seems hidden at the beginning, but the unravelling details that damn the dystopia are just the right kind of insidious for us to rebel right along with her. It's an homage to every dystopian novel before it, while remaining a simple, precious, and endearing romance. I am usually upset/annoyed by love triangles, as they're generally overused, unnecessary, and not particularly romantic (seriously, there's really nothing romantic about hurting two perfectly decent young men over love). This is unfortunately not an exception, as Xander and Ky, who both could have used better names, both lacked flaws of any kind (other than their names) to nudge our preferences in a particular direction. The result is a love story tainted by a tertiary character destined for disappointment. However, Cassia's parents were wonderful - it's always refreshing when a character doesn't need dead parents to have her own story - and her brother was darling. The book ends at just the right moment for transition to book two - much like Delirium, in fact. I appreciate any book that uses poetry as unawkwardly as Matched manages to (Lies Beneath, by Anne Greenwood Brown, is another). I can only hope we'll have a new generation of readers buying volumes of Tennyson and Dylan Thomas.