Thank you to everyone who read and commented on the first Orwell
Project entry, and apologies for the next part taking so long. It’s been a busy
month for me due to ending university, my internship, job, numerous
volunteering positions and organising my graduation (2:1 MA hons in Celtic
& English literature, fuck yeah!) so reviewing had to be shelved for a
while. Now that I will probably have a lot more free time on my hands as I join
the ranks of unemployed humanities graduates, this will hopefully move along a little more
speedily.
Summary (taken from GoodReads): Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right
choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's
face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete
certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash
for an instant before the screen fades to black.
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.
Cover impressions: I distinctly remember reading a Publisher’s
Weekly piece on the much buzzed about auction for publishers to acquire the
rights to the trilogy by Condie, an author who had only previously published Mormon-centric
teen fiction from much smaller publishers, and the much talked about seven
figure sum the author received. Condie’s agent, Jodi Reamer, is nothing if not
a savvy businesswoman. What followed after that auction were many months of
hype and a not insignificant publicity campaign that, while nowhere near
matching that which “Divergent” would later receive, still warranted attention
and discussion. As expected, the first book in the planned trilogy went
straight into the New York Times bestseller list. However, there were rumblings
that the book had not sold anywhere near as well as expected, and the reviews
were decidedly mixed amongst readers. With the final book in the trilogy being
released in November, one can’t help but notice how little buzz there is
surrounding its impending release, especially when compared to that which
preceded “Insurgent”, the follow-up to “Divergent”. Having finally read “Matched”,
it’s not hard to see why. I must admit that this book took a lot longer to read
than it probably should have. Part of the blame for that can be directed
towards myself and my schedule, but the main reason it took me so long was
because I was so unbelievably bored with this book.
Small side note: The cover is pretty but it’s yet another
addition to the less than creative field of pretty skinny white girls in prom
dresses that seem to have flooded the YA cover market. I find it interesting
that the marketing for this book, along with several upcoming Orwell Project
books, focus their attentions on the shallow and fashionable elements of the
story. This dress appears in one scene and yet the marketing is all about it.
The premise for “Matched” is a familiar one, especially to
those of us who have read works such as “1984” and “The Giver”. Set in an
undisclosed point in the future of what I assume is America, The Society
dictates every part of the lives of its citizens. They control who you marry,
when and how many children you’ll have, the education you’ll receive, the job
you’ll do and when you shall die. Their reasoning for doing so is based heavily
on statistics that prove their decisions equal long, content and productive
lives for all. The book opens on the night of the matching banquet of our 17
year old hero Cassia. Wearing one of a selected number of dresses (the
admittedly gorgeous green number adorns the cover of the book), she eagerly
awaits the Society’s decision as to whom she shall marry. To everyone’s
surprise, she is matched with her good friend Xander. Such instances are rare
as the vast majority of the Society’s citizens are matched with strangers. However,
Cassia’s carefully ordered life takes an unexpected twist when, upon checking
the details of her match, the file containing details of Xander shows not his
face but that of another boy she knows, called Ky. Unfortunately this match
cannot be since Ky is an aberration and is thus forbidden from being matched.
Cassia finds herself in a state of turmoil over choosing the boy chosen for her
or the forbidden mysterious stranger. If that final sentence doesn’t make you a
little queasy, you’re a stronger YA reader than I.
Before I even get onto the utterly bland stupidity of the
romance, the story’s central focus, I must touch on the one thing I did like
about “Matched”, and that is the prose. Condie writes beautiful prose, striking
a fine balance between a lyrical quality and yet remaining purposeful in her
word choice. It’s tougher than it looks and I commend her for that. It works to
extremely emotional effect in one particular scene with Cassia and her grandfather.
However, the book fails on almost every other level, starting with the
world-building.
The premise of an all controlling society is nothing new in fiction.
It’s a backbone of dystopian novels and can be written in a highly effective
manner. I recommend “The Giver” by Lois Lowry as a strong example, especially
given that “Matched” borrows heavily from the tropes used in “The Giver”. Obviously,
the Society is originally viewed as a utopia, bringing peace to its citizens,
but the main problem with Condie’s Society is that it is completely toothless. Almost
every character breaks some sort of rule throughout the story, be it minor or
major. If this is a small sample, how does this translate to the Society as a
whole? How on earth do they keep order? Given how much free will is allotted to
the citizens, I remained baffled as to how they functioned. Surely if people
are constantly breaking rules, and know they are doing so, then they are fully
aware that their government is not utopian, therefore they become ungovernable?
The Society claims to have eradicated certain illnesses, such as cancer,
through the matched pairings, but while I’m no doctor, I’m not sure that’s how
cancer works.
The Society has set aside 100 of each thing for the citizens
to appreciate, such as 100 poems or 100 songs. How are these 100 poems decided
out of the immeasurable amount of literature created over the course of
thousands of years of human achievement? Let’s look at this logically (since I
doubt the Society did): it would make the most sense for the Society to pick
100 American poems, given the location of the story, but which era would they
choose, if any? For example, I love Edwin Morgan, and it would be tough enough
to pick 100 of his poems to preserve, let alone 100 poems from every poem ever
written. Would drama written in verse count? What about works translated from a
foreign language? How is a poem deemed suitable? Given the often deeply
confessional, political or cultural specific nature of some poets’ work, how
can one be sure the poem they choose doesn’t incite some sort of revolution
amongst the people? Books are burned in dystopian societies for a reason –
because words are power. Some poems require a lot of research and analysis to
truly appreciate the power behind them. I’m currently reading a biography of
the marriage between Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, and it’s uncovering so many
of the complexities behind each of their work that I’d never even considered
before, and I consider myself a huge Plath fan in particular. This particular
aspect of the story bugged me quite a bit, especially since I’ve spent hours
analysing one stanza of a poem for an essay. The 100 poems choice is made all
the more confusing given that the citizens are taught to read but not to write.
To me, that doesn’t make a lot of sense. How is that even possible? In one
supposedly touching scene of romance building, Ky teaches Cassia to write, but
if she can read perfectly, as is mentioned on more than one occasion, surely
she could just see the words in her head and copy them down? There is no real
logic behind these decisions made by the Society. The society in “The Giver”
works because they have eradicated colour and music and anything creative. Here,
Cassia’s world seems utterly ridiculous in comparison. There’s no logic here at
all.
Since the romantic element takes up the vast majority of the
story, so it must take up the vast majority of my review, unfortunately. To put
it succinctly, the romance is awful. It’s the worst of what YA romance has
thrown at us over the past 5 years. Dull, insipid, poorly developed, overly
reliant on “mysterious”, “brooding”, and other such descriptive words, the love
triangle unfolds pretty much as you would expect. It’s the join-the-dots of YA
romance, headed by an extremely annoying heroine with absolutely no concept of
how basic human emotions work. It’s a very conservative romance, with a simple
brushing of hands bringing about emotions in Cassia so extreme, I shudder to
think how she’ll cope when she has her first orgasm (yes, I know Condie is a
Mormon and that she was inspired to write “Matched” after chaperoning at a high
school dance, but the book is terrible enough independent of the author, so separate
my thoughts shall remain). I get the thrill of a first crush, we all do on some
level, but here it is heightened to such ludicrous proportions that don’t even
fit in with the society in which Cassia is living. This all controlling Society
decides who you shall marry, but still allows cross-gender interaction and the
odd kiss or two amongst the unmatched. Why? I refuse to believe this Society is
stupid enough to assume that no child under the age of 16 has ever felt an
attraction, physical or emotional, to another human being before they are
matched with a spouse for life. We are supposed to believe that Cassia has
never felt any attachment, romantic or otherwise, to another person, even
subconsciously, before she is matched with her supposed close friend and then
all of a sudden, there is a switch which changes everything. This is a world
devoid of sexuality, not because the Society dictates it, but because the author
has eradicated it and refuses to address it. Which brings me to a side note I
must address.
Where the fuck are the gay people in dystopian fiction?
On top of believing that teenage hormones do not exist, the
reader is supposed to assume that homosexuality, bisexuality, and anything
remotely resembling an LGBTQ lifestyle just does not exist. The matchings exist
to create content relationships and strong families, and I get that. However,
there is not one single acknowledgement that LGBTQ people even exist in this
Society. If Condie had taken a moment to mention that queer lifestyles were
outlawed or something similar, I wouldn’t have been happy but there would have
been some sort of understanding, but there’s nothing. It’s not that gay people
aren’t allowed in the Society, it’s that they don’t even fucking exist, and
this makes me so angry. Given the pathetically small percentage of LGBTQ
representation in current young adult fiction, to have this seven figure sum
selling trilogy, one that publishers fought over to buy, one that was buzzed
about for almost a year prior to release, just ignore a significant portion of
the population disappoints me. The characters in the book have the option to
reject their match and live life as a Single (which also opens up another whole
heap of plot holes) so I assume this is what LGBTQ citizens choose? If so, why
does the author not acknowledge this? Are LGBTQ people not worth her time, or
any dystopian author’s time? Given how much YA likes to pat itself on the back
for being so diverse and supporting LGBTQ readers, seeing the most buzzed about
books once again focus on the straight pretty skinny white girl in an expensive
dress while entirely ignoring LGBTQ people makes me want to vomit.
Back to the romance. Ky is the one Cassia falls for (it’s
the biggest shock of the year!) apparently because she’s forbidden to. They barely
interact and they know next to nothing about each other, and yet we’re supposed
to believe they completely adore each other and will do anything do stay
together, as long as it doesn’t stop Cassia from being entirely passive as a
heroine. Her supposedly close friendship with Xander is shown to be equally as
poorly developed but at least they have conversations together and Xander
exhibits a modicum of a personality. Ky’s entire worth as a romantic heroine
seems to rest on him being mysterious and forbidding. Call me old fashioned but
I’d like to get to know someone before we brush hands and declare our
everlasting love. While there is a lot less of the grating angst commonly seen
in YA romance when it comes to the heroine choosing between two boys, the fact
that Cassia immediately seems to fall for someone she barely knows does nothing
to bring me in as a reader. When it is revealed that the romance between Ky and
Cassia is also a set up by the Society, for reasons too pointless and ludicrous
for me to note, this has no effect on anything. Cassia barely questions her
thoughts on the issue, which is odd given how preoccupied she was with the
decision between her and Xander. It’s not love, it’s obsession. This forbidden
romance also has absolutely no effect on the plot. About 50 pages from the end
of one extremely slow read, Cassia’s family are sent to a new location and Ky
is sent to another, not because of their romance but because of two entirely
unrelated incidents that are barely mentioned in the novel. The entire focus of
the story is completely inconsequential to the central plot. Basically, the
romance is literally pointless. If that doesn’t irritate you as a reader, I don’t
know what will.
This review suggests I am much angrier with this book than I
actually am. Aside from the complete erasing of LGBTQ representation (and that
rant could easily be applied to any number of big selling YA novels), this book
mostly just bored me. It’s lifeless in almost every possible way, bland and comparable
to birthday cake icing – pretty to look at but utterly lacking in anything
remotely resembling substance. Where Condie’s prose shows a strong level of
control over the language, the Society depicted completely lacks it. I’m struggling
with a way to properly sum up “Matched” because it was so entirely pointless
and forgettable, but it wasn’t atrociously bad. I found “Divergent” to be a far
worse book, but there was a note of ambition behind it. “Matched” feels lazy in
comparison, far more invested in an entirely inconsequential romance one can
find in any number of YA books than in giving dimensions to its characters and
the world they inhabit. “Matched” is solid proof that gimmicks can only take
you so far in YA, and the same can be said for hype.
Big Brother’s Checklist:
·
World-building: Terrible, frivolous, completely lacking in the logic that is frequently
mentioned in reference to it. I spent way more time thinking about the holes in
the 100 poems scheme than I should have.
·
Strong premise: It’s a gimmick, pure and simple. A “What if…?” idea that’s good for
taglines but not much else. If you’ve read “The Giver” then you may find
yourself trying to figure out the percentage of that seven figure advance that
Condie owes to Lois Lowry.
·
“Strong female character”: Cassia isn’t supposed to be the kickass heroine Tris was depicted as,
but she is described as intelligent on more than one occasion, including by the
Society, and yet she remains passive, childish and really annoying throughout.
·
Love triangle: I’m counting this as a yes because, while Cassia is very decisive in
her choice between the two potential romantic interests, the reader is still
subjected to far too much internal angst from Cassia on the issue.
·
Sense of threat: There isn’t one.
·
Strong villain/antagonist: The Society isn’t a strong enough threat to really register as an
antagonist, nor is there another present.
·
Lack of priorities: Romance always works better as a sub-plot unless you can write the hell
out of a romance. Brief hand brushing, letters on napkins and mysterious
strangers just don’t cut it.
·
Overdone/unnecessary romance: Unnecessary should have been this book’s title.
·
Supporting cast: With the exception of Cassia’s grandfather, who exhibits wit and warmth
in the one standout scene of the novel, the supporting cast barely registers. I
was interested in learning more about the relationship between Cassia’s
parents, but little time was allotted to them.
·
Deeper meaning: There doesn’t seem to be one.
·
General writing quality (pace, plotting, prose):
Beautiful prose, terrible plotting, sluggish page. Half a point here.
·
Originality/execution: Read “The Giver” instead.
Bingo count: 11 ½ /12.
Next time on the Orwell Project: Kiera Cass’s “The Selection”,
as possibly to be seen on the CW in the near future. I’m also looking for
suggestions on how to improve the Big Brother’s checklist. Is there anything I should
add or take away? Once again, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book and
others coming up in the Orwell Project, and if you can recommend a dystopian
novel that actually acknowledges LGBTQ people, then you’ll get a gold star and
my thanks!
