Booktalks Quick and Simple

	Condie, Ally. MATCHED New York : Duton, 2010 IL YA ISBN 978-0525423645 (5 booktalks)
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews	Booktalk #1 Is this what the future holds? Clean streets, no illnesses, a controlled life? Arranged marriages? Cassia is looking forward to her Match. It is a day when she gets to dress up and the family get a wonderful meal at the ceremony. As she watches the screen while the other eligible girls are informed of their matches, she wonders who she will be matched with. Probably a boy from another village. Girls don't get to meet their matches until after the ceremony. But when her name is called, she is matched with Xander -- her best friend. Is this a good thing? Everyone agrees that this is a good match. And she already knows him and likes him so that should be great. But when she opens her viewscreen, it is not Xander she sees. Booktalk #2 In the Society, the officials decide everything. Where you work. What you eat, and how you spend your free time. Even whom you marry. 17-year old Cassia Reyes has always trusted their choices, so when she is matched with her best friend, Xander, she has no reason to question whether the Society really knows best. She believes that Xander really is her perfect match. But when another boy’s face quickly flashes on the Matching screen, Cassia starts to wonder if she belongs with Xander after all. Ky is mysterious, romantic, and more than a little secretive about his past. Then Cassia’s grandfather teaches her part of a forbidden poem that begins, “Do not go gentle into that good night … Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Cassia realizes that the poem has been banned because of its message to fight. Will she live the life that’s been assigned to her, or will she fight to follow her own path? If you enjoyed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, get ready to LOVE Matched and its dystopian love triangle! – Amy Pickett (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2011-2012) Booktalk #3 Cassia Reyes just turned 17 and the night she has dreamed about and waited for her whole life is about to happen - it is a night of firsts: her first ball - the first time she will wear a beautiful dress - and the first time she will meet her Match - the person she will fall in love with and someday marry. In Cassia’s society the government has scientifically planned and designed every person’s life for the optimal satisfaction and happiness possible. Disease and hunger have been eradicated, but in exchange, the government makes many of their decisions – from what they eat and wear to what they study and do for a profession. They even design how much leisure time they receive each week. On Cassia’s Match night, there is a glitch; instead of meeting a smiling young man she doesn’t know, the screen goes dark and stays dark for one second, two seconds, what seems like eternity before if flickers back to life and before her is Zander, her best friend, not a stranger, but someone she has known her whole life. Yet, what if that glitch was something more, what if Xander is not Cassia’s one true match. Could there be someone else? And what path will Cassia follow, will she follow the Society’s rules as she has always willingly done or will she forge a different path? (Pamela Lowe for Colorado Blue Spru ce Award, 2013) Booktalk #4 Seventeen-year-old Cassia lives in The Society. Everything in The Society is perfectly coordinated. Nobody questions decisions made by The Society. How much Cassie eats, where she will work and live and when she will die has been determined for her by The Society. Even whom she will marry will be revealed via live video feed at her matching ceremony. Nothing ever goes wrong in The Society. Until Cassia is shown first one match and then a second match. Unusually Cassia knows both of her matches. She briefly sees an image of Ky, an outsider deemed an "Aberration" by the Society and not supposed to be eligible for matching. His image is quickly replaced by that of Xander, who Cassia has known since childhood. After the ceremony Cassia begins to question: Was the Ky a better match? What else has been forbidden? Is the Society, her family, her life as perfect as it seems? Cassia's choices will have far-reaching effects. Matched is and exciting dystopian story--and lucky for readers this book is just the first in a trilogy. (booktalk by Amber Peterson, Beaver Lake Middle School Library, for Evergreen Young Adult Book Award 2013) Booktalk #4 Cassia is an average seventeen-year-old girl. She attends school, has close friends, and even a crush. However, she lives in a totalitarian government, called the Society and is subject to arranged marriages, called “Matches”. She only eats food that is provided by the government with portion control, exercises when they tell her and how they tell her, and sleeps when and how they tell her. Along with every other citizen in the Society, Cassia has a curfew, is only allowed to wear black and brown “plain” clothes, and has limited choices in school, and “leisure” activities. Cassia is told when to live and even die. The Society controls everything. It is only until it is almost too late that Cassia begins to realize that the Society isn’t as perfect as she had once thought. After being “matched” to her childhood friend, Cassia falls in love with someone else. An aberration. A boy, whose only worth to the Society, is working with poison and subject to death at an early age. Cassia also begins to fall in love with poetry, writing, and art. All things the Society is extremely strict about, limiting citizens so much that being caught with unapproved literature lands them with a citation, or even worse: being removed. Cassia begins to play with fire, taking chances with her life and others, asking questions she shouldn’t ask, and ends up finding out that there is always a way out. (Book Talk Author: Jaime Rogers, Colorado Blue Spruce Award, 2015)
	SUBJECTS: Mate selection -- Fiction. Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction. Self-realization -- Fiction. Fantasy.

Is this what the future holds? Clean streets, no illnesses, a controlled life? Arranged marriages? Cassia is looking forward to her Match. It is a day when she gets to dress up and the family get a wonderful meal at the ceremony. As she watches the screen while the other eligible girls are informed of their matches, she wonders who she will be matched with. Probably a boy from another village. Girls don't get to meet their matches until after the ceremony. But when her name is called, she is matched with Xander -- her best friend. Is this a good thing? Everyone agrees that this is a good match. And she already knows him and likes him so that should be great. But when she opens her viewscreen, it is not Xander she sees.

In the Society, the officials decide everything. Where you work. What you eat, and how you spend your free time. Even whom you marry. 17-year old Cassia Reyes has always trusted their choices, so when she is matched with her best friend, Xander, she has no reason to question whether the Society really knows best. She believes that Xander really is her perfect match. But when another boy’s face quickly flashes on the Matching screen, Cassia starts to wonder if she belongs with Xander after all. Ky is mysterious, romantic, and more than a little secretive about his past. Then Cassia’s grandfather teaches her part of a forbidden poem that begins, “Do not go gentle into that good night … Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Cassia realizes that the poem has been banned because of its message to fight. Will she live the life that’s been assigned to her, or will she fight to follow her own path? If you enjoyed The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, get ready to LOVE Matched and its dystopian love triangle! – Amy Pickett (Pennsylvania Young Reader's Choice Awards, 2011-2012)

Cassia Reyes just turned 17 and the night she has dreamed about and waited for her whole life is about to happen - it is a night of firsts: her first ball - the first time she will wear a beautiful dress - and the first time she will meet her Match - the person she will fall in love with and someday marry.

In Cassia’s society the government has scientifically planned and designed every person’s life for the optimal satisfaction and happiness possible. Disease and hunger have been eradicated, but in exchange, the government makes many of their decisions – from what they eat and wear to what they study and do for a profession. They even design how much leisure time they receive each week.

On Cassia’s Match night, there is a glitch; instead of meeting a smiling young man she doesn’t know, the screen goes dark and stays dark for one second, two seconds, what seems like eternity before if flickers back to life and before her is Zander, her best friend, not a stranger, but someone she has known her whole life. Yet, what if that glitch was something more, what if Xander is not Cassia’s one true match. Could there be someone else? And what path will Cassia follow, will she follow the Society’s rules as she has always willingly done or will she forge a different path? (Pamela Lowe for Colorado Blue Spru ce Award, 2013)

Booktalk #4

Seventeen-year-old Cassia lives in The Society. Everything in The Society is perfectly coordinated. Nobody questions decisions made by The Society. How much Cassie eats, where she will work and live and when she will die has been determined for her by The Society. Even whom she will marry will be revealed via live video feed at her matching ceremony.

Nothing ever goes wrong in The Society.

Until Cassia is shown first one match and then a second match. Unusually Cassia knows both of her matches. She briefly sees an image of Ky, an outsider deemed an "Aberration" by the Society and not supposed to be eligible for matching. His image is quickly replaced by that of Xander, who Cassia has known since childhood. After the ceremony Cassia begins to question: Was the Ky a better match? What else has been forbidden? Is the Society, her family, her life as perfect as it seems? Cassia's choices will have far-reaching effects.

Matched is and exciting dystopian story--and lucky for readers this book is just the first in a trilogy.

(booktalk by Amber Peterson, Beaver Lake Middle School Library, for Evergreen Young Adult Book Award 2013)

Booktalk #4

Cassia is an average seventeen-year-old girl. She attends school, has close friends, and even a crush.

However, she lives in a totalitarian government, called the Society and is subject to arranged marriages, called “Matches”. She only eats food that is provided by the government with portion control, exercises when they tell her and how they tell her, and sleeps when and how they tell her. Along with every other citizen in the Society, Cassia has a curfew, is only allowed to wear black and brown “plain” clothes, and has limited choices in school, and “leisure” activities. Cassia is told when to live and even die. The Society controls everything. It is only until it is almost too late that Cassia begins to realize that the Society isn’t as perfect as she had once thought.

After being “matched” to her childhood friend, Cassia falls in love with someone else. An aberration. A boy, whose only worth to the Society, is working with poison and subject to death at an early age. Cassia also begins to fall in love with poetry, writing, and art. All things the Society is extremely strict about, limiting citizens so much that being caught with unapproved literature lands them with a citation, or even worse: being removed. Cassia begins to play with fire, taking chances with her life and others, asking questions she shouldn’t ask, and ends up finding out that there is always a way out. (Book Talk Author: Jaime Rogers, Colorado Blue Spruce Award, 2015)