Gabe Cole Novoa

Insurgent is a fantastic (if not slightly infuriating—but in a good way) sequel. One of my favorite aspects about the Divergent trilogy is the characters—they're complicated and layered, make (plenty) of mistakes and have their own flaws and struggles to deal with. As a bonus, Roth doesn't rely on the traditional love triangle seen so often in YA novels—instead, she chooses to explore the complexities and difficulties of a relationship, which turned out to be very effective (and also often the source of the aforementioned frustration).

For those of you who have read Divergent and haven't yet picked up the sequel, I highly recommend it, and for anyone else who enjoys well-written dystopian YA books, I can't recommend this trilogy enough.

As is the case with many YA novels, Matched is written in first person from the POV of the protagonist Cassia. I'd heard a reviewer say that they didn't feel the voice sounded very much like a teenager and I have to say I somewhat agree. However, considering the strict society that Matched takes place in and the way Cassia was raised, the voice—which wasn't quite emotional enough to fully feel like a teenager to me—didn't kill it for me.

Without spoiling anything, my biggest hurdle came in suspending my disbelief—not due to the dystopian society or some of the rather less-than-pleasant methods that the Society employs, however—but with the love triangle between Cassia, Ky and Xander. Xander has been Cassia's best friend for most of her life, so it was easy to believe that she was ecstatic when it was decided that she would marry him. I found it a little more difficult to believe, however, that Cassia would so easily start to fall for Ky, who she even admits she barely thought about until the turning point in the novel. Again, it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, but I did question it, especially at the beginning.

Despite that, Matched kept me interested. The strict rules imposed by the Society threw one obstacle after another and kept the tension pretty high throughout the novel, not to mention the conflict of forbidden love, which always makes for a pretty decent page turner. I thought the characters were well developed, interested and flawed enough to feel real.

Matched was an entertaining read—if not a little more slowly paced than I would have liked—and a good start to what should prove to be an interesting series. I certainly found the dystopian Society that Condie built to be interesting, if not a bit disturbing (a world where you're only permitted to know 100 Stories, poems, histories and songs is one from any writer's nightmares) and I still recommend it to fellow dystopian fans who enjoy a classic love triangle.