At this point I'd rather see the antithesis of the YA dystopia, where the heroine commits war crimes for the government in quelling a rebellion and remains happily married with her state-mandated partner.
How to write a YA dystopia: Step 1: "The world but X is illegal" Step 2: Replace X with a result from a random word generator Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit!
No, you've got to pick an X that lends itself to both making privileged teenagers feel oppressed & facilitates shipping, such as "being Different from my peers" & "being chosen as Special" (a la Divergent). So "love is illegal" kills two birds with one stone
@@Blindinglights25 the first word I got from my random word generator was "murder". So I'll now write a Hunger Games ripoff where the pritagonist has to survive in a terrible post-apocalyptic society, where _murder_ is illegal! Oh no, how will she survive!
“What if love…. was illegal?! 😮” feels like a very out of touch dystopia premise when that’s been the reality for so many people for the bulk of the last few centuries.
I mean historically allegories and such like that have been used to help make certain social issues more relatable to demographics that otherwise wouldn't really get exposure to them, especially if it were delivered more directly.
The thing I remember that made me the angriest about this entire series is that, close to the very end it’s revealed her younger brother had to identify dead bodies for money in order to survive. What he went through, was far more harrowing than any of the protagonists, and frankly, much, much more interesting.
I want to write one of those awful book too. Let's say... Coats were illegal, and its super cold outside. Can Fea Raincoat oppose the evil regime with her boyfriend Ched Wintermore?
Little does she know the fate of the world rests on the decision she makes. Will she choose the path of safety laid out before her or will don her cloak and defy destiny itself?
I remember reading the entire series as a kid (for some reason, probably boredom). All I remember of it are two scenes were she gets matched and then something something factory conversation. And then nothing else. I think half the reason why I picked it up in the first place was because the cover was pretty.
Most of the books I used to read when I was a kid were picked because they had a pretty cover! Now I mostly read indie books so the covers are something I avoid looking at too much since they can be extremely derpy looking xD
I haven't the foggiest idea what these books were about but I saw them everywhere. In middle school, at least one girl in my class had one of the books at any given time.
The thing that always stuck out to me was the governenemt slowly poisoning old ppls food to kill them by a certain age Also a mountain hike with some flagging tape
Same, I read the whole series in middle school. I remember absolutely nothing about it other than the blue tablet thing was actually killing people. At least I think it was the blue one
Well I mean it’s hard not to rip off something that is also a rip off. Hunger Games is honestly not even a good rip off of Battle Royale, because it’s almost the same story.
I'm surprised how far you went without talking about the people having to carry around the three pills; that was the only part of the book i remembered. As a kid i was pretty shocked by the discovery that the 'emergency nutrients' pill was actually a 'death' pill.
Her walking off the blue 'death' pill was one of my favorite scenes. As much plot amor that was in effect in that scene, I found it very empowering as a kid.
I read this at the same time I read Cinder and i deadass thought those books were the same for years because they both have a main dude named Kai in it.
honestly i should have known from reading this in middle school that i was some type of aro/ace because the entire book i was confused as to why she kept pursuing Ky when she had a perfectly good match in her best friend right there
I’m not even Ace but I was so confused too because the world building was interesting enough. (Editing to add I read it when I was kid and haven’t read it since)
I'm not aro or ace, but when I read this book in middle school I was so confused as to why she immediately started having a crush on Ky. I was not invested in any of the relationships
Same!!! That’s one of the biggest reasons why I dropped the series, because I just could not get behind whatever what was happening with Ky. She and Xander were such good friends and seemed like they had a much more preferable bond. I was hoping that Ky would just be a red herring turned best friend/cool character but alas….Main Romance Option
So I read this series when I was in the psych ward as a teen. I thought it was so beautiful and loved the series. Got a “rage rage against the dying of the light” tattoo bc that poem really spoke to me. Dying @ how bland the series really is. The psych ward meds were strong lmfao
These videos fascinate me because I worked in my middle school and high school libraries, and I remember all of these books getting checked out and other students gushing over them and just.... Not getting it. Glad to know I wasn't missing out on anything profound. (This is not a superiority thing, to be clear; I read a ton of shameful garbage, it was just garbage horror, not garbage dystopia.)
I remember being a teen and literally reading the Xanth series for the mere ability to picture centaur tits, so I really can't feel superior to today's kids.
My favorite dystopian series is the selection. Is it good? No. Did i enjoy it? More than you can imagine. Edit: and now i wanna read matched because i’m a sucker for trashy cw stories. Edit 2: i am commenting as i go, and the 100 limit on things sounds like marie kondo and the whole “i only keep 30 books” thing or whatever in the name of minimalism. Maybe the author was onto something lol Edit 3: i don’t want to read matched anymore
the selection series is basically the bachelor and I am here for it. It could have been so great but America really pissed me off. Was a big fan of this trash TV premise tho
@@Blindinglights25same! Every time america didn’t communicate pissed me off so much. And aspen frustrated me to no end. I wish they had developed the revolutionary aspect of it a little more, but i’m 1000% here for the bachelor with teenagers.
I tried to read The Selection recently because I love trash, I love garbage, I love dreck and I love refuse, and also it was available without paying for it...I got as far as the first page where America is explaining the changes in the holidays. There's plenty of books where I can believe the characters have their own thoughts and motivations that are separate from the author's, but I can't actually buy that in Kiera Cass' writing so the ignorance and racism of _not knowing Lunar New Year is already celebrated in the west_ and _blaming China for forcing it on 'Illeria'_ (or whatever new Dystopian States of America is called) and *then* _failing to understand that the NEW YEAR starts at the beginning of the NEW YEAR_ rather broke my suspension of disbelief Anyways Happy New Year's & Lunar New Year's, y'all
After Twilight & The Hunger Games, every single published YA book(s) utilized the same tropes: a love triangle, a rebellion stirring, overthrowing a government, or a test of some sort, to the point where it became such an over compensated market. The Selection, The Mortal Instruments, Beautiful Creatures, Throne of Glass, The Infernal Devices, Divergent, The Testing, etc. I hope the YA genre readjusts to original ideas, because I read YA years ago but grew tired of the repetition overtime. The Hunger Games was a stand out IMHO, but my only critique I have is the love triangle they tried to implement really takes me out of the serious themes and messages of the series. "Matched" is a repetitive trope, drawn out for 3 books.
I think the love triangle does kind of work in The Hunger Games' favor to some extent. In my interpretation, Gale and Peeta represent each potential future that Katniss has: Gale is destructive rebellion, Peeta is quiet contentedness. It's not a perfect one-to-one, and Peeta was pretty obvious endgame because he gets way more characterization and time with Katniss, but it does add another layer to Katniss's internal struggles.
@@HStorm26I slightly disagree. I understand what Collins did: wrote her own spin on the trope itself, but it's still a love triangle nonetheless. In my opinion, it ages the story, since that slight aspect will always be dubbed "a product of its time". Love triangles in YA were everywhere after Twilight, and THG was a victim of that, too. An over compensated trope, a slight tool for marketing. I still adore the series, but every time I reread or rewatch, it takes me out of the serious tone & messages of the story.
@@Lukedevin8665ed That is pretty fair, just about every story in the YA dystopia craze did drop in a love triangle with less structural integrity than the dystopian government's regime, I can understand the resentment.
the problem with people writing love triangles in YA books is the fact that they’re never actually love triangles, they’re love corners. for the thing between katniss, peeta, and gale to have been a love triangle, peeta and gale had to have been in love with each other as well. this goes for every other love triangle that is basically just “girl in love with two boys” or some variation there of. if the other two people are not in love with each other as well, it’s not a triangle
I heard that Collins’ editors told her to add more romance focus to the, even though she didn’t want to. Which results in the shitty love triangle. Leave it to big corporate companies to fuck up a story simply for cheap drama points.
There is actually a really good Webtoon called LUFF with a similar premise. There's a mega corporation that has a huge share in lots of different things (like banks, universities etc.) that matches people based on their thumbprints and what percentage of them matches. You're at a societal disadvantage if you don't enter their thumbprint database as in you won't get approved for bank loans and stuff. The main character does it for uni stuff and she has two equally compatible matches. I read it a while ago, but I remember it being really good.
You know the review will be funny when James sounds like a remorseful criminal confessing his devious acts, right at the beginning of the video. Keep the good work!
i reread the first two books over lockdown and it was so. they were so Books. when i read them as a kid, i thought they were stupid with how cassia didnt really seem to have any motivations and how nothing in the world is Explained ever. a lot of things clicked, however, upon finding out that the author is mormon. lmao.
@@cam4636 If I had a nickel for every time the author of a trash series turned out to be Mormon, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Even as a middle-schooler, I came to realize this series was trash and gave up halfway through the second book. I still don’t understand why there was a love triangle at all, it just seemed so forced for the sake of the trope
I remember reading a lot of these books (often not completing them) when I was younger bc I hoped for something interesting. I hadn’t read the hunger games until way later, which was kinda cool bc when I did read it I was like “wow the hungers games is a breath of fresh air”
Just read Matched, can say for a fact i have no plan in reading the next two. The characters are bland, an the world makes little to no sense. Killing people at eighty with poison yet somehow no one notices this until Cassia? As soon as they said something to the effect of "no one can eat the elderly's food on their last night; it's a law" I knew exactly what was going on, as I'm sure all other readers did. Also... one hundred of everything? This number is so absurd I'm not even going to question it, but....well, nevermind That's my problem with YA dystopian, there are only so many directions you can take it: spaceship, evil government, war, monarchy, etc
There are a lot of directions you can take things like an evil government and war, for some reason, YA authors just refuse to do anything different or unexpected.
The only thing I really remember about the story of matched (as told to me by my sister) is that they put a lot of focus on the dresses for the matching
The only thing that had an impact on me in Matched was the inclusion of the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and the small theme of censorship and book burning
I remember reading this book thinking that there was going to be some sort of queer rep or at least something alternative to “two hot boys like me, I live in oppressive dystopia” because I kept thinking there’s no way that a book could be so tone-deaf as to create a world where love is illegal and not even *mention* queer people or anything like that. Alas, I was a naive child who didn’t understand that yes, such books unfortunately exist.
I think it's interesting that Matched and Divergent make the same mistake of making their dystopian rule that defines how their society is different from ours kind of half-assedly optional. Like you can choose your faction regardless of the test, so the test feels pointless, and in this you can be with someone you're not matched to and it's not illegal or anything. While we're at it how about a reboot of 1984 where Winston just says no I don't feel like going into the torture room, I want to go home, the guy says right off you go then, just like that Monty Python Meaning of Life skit. I'm calling in sick to the dystopia on Monday.
dude i saw this book on my english teacher's shelf (for students to have silent reading time with), i read the back, and i immediately put it back down. glad to know i made the right choice
There was a book series by Melanie Rawn where the rebel group was called The Rising, but she's a good enough author that given the setting and world building the name fit.
In a world where only hard bread is legal, a group of young rebels are defying the status quo, by using yeast on their bread, they are called... *THE RISING!!!*
Tbh assigned marriages still are a thing in some parts of the world and the author might have been writing about that, rather than gay marriage or whatever else James compared the plot too.
A comparison between arranged marriages and how ~The Society~ matches young people up in the book can definitely be made. I think James was just comparing gay marriage to Cassia/Ky though, with how they fall in love outside of societal ‘norms’. The idea of having an illegal love, since gay marriage is also still outlawed in many countries. As for what the author intended/what real world aspects she may have been trying to incorporate into the novel,,, I don’t think there was that much thought put into it lol
True, but most arranged marriages are arranged by parents who actually care about the well being of their children, not autocratic governments trying to be evil. A realistic depiction of modern arranged marriage would basically look a lot more like meeting your partner on Tinder, except the profiles you get to see were pre approved by your parents
BTW, there is a pretty good movie called Sairaat which is very similar to James' fixed version of the story. Highly recommend it if you can find an Eng Sub
I remember reading Matched in middle school, I thought the first book was fine, but god the last two were such a slog I ended up dropping the series entirely. They couldn't even make me care about the characters enough for me to finish the series like Red Queen did. If you want more pain and suffering try reading the Delirium trilogy if you haven't already. I have yet to get through a third of the first book by hate reading and I just don't think I can do it lol. Really interested in what you'd think of it.
I got through matched (I think I was interested in trying to mentally fix the world building issues more than anything; the entire romance part was just kinda in the way for my aroace ass). I think I read like five chapters of Delirium before I gave up. I have a pretty strange taste in books if I’m honest.
i picked this series up as a kid and i had to reread the last book about 3 times just to vaguely understand it. i thought the writing was just too intelligent and complex for me... yeah it was the complete opposite
Tbh I'm surprised to hear the series was popular. I've never seen anyone talking about it anywhere online or irl. The only reason I've heard of the series in the first place was because I happened to receive the first book as a christmas present when I was in middle school.
I remember this book being really popular when I was in middle school and a bunch of friends reading it. I never read it cuz I assumed it was mostly a romance and I hated romance in middle school, I guess that was a good decision
I hated most romance (and it turned out I’m aroace so no wonder), but I still read this series. I primarily liked the first book, and mostly because thinking about weird ass world building interested me
I have never read or heard of Matched, but the premise sounds similar to this anime/manga named Love and Lies, where a matching system decides who should be paired with who (In Love and Lies, starting from childhood you are surveyed to check for your preference, personality, hobbies, etc.) and its supposed to make a healthy, happier relationship between the couples because they are compatible. And I sort of get why the premise would click, there's also a Webtoon with this plot but the girl is matched with two guys.
as a child i LOVED the books, and i recently tried to reread the first book and i got about 1/3 of the way through and didn’t even think about it for a week
I don’t remember a whole lot about these books but I DO remember I loved them lmfao. This series and one about a siren girl who had to drive to the middle of nowhere in the woods to sing?? were like the PEAK of writing to me 💀 the whole “we withheld food from you to make you more likely to start a rebellion” think was MIND BLOWING to small me 😭💀 lord have mercy
I was super into the YA dystopia craze when it happened- I was the exact right age for it- but with all the weird, obscure ones I read, Matched was one I missed. I actually read it for the first time over the summer as prep work for my senior thesis (it involves YA dystopia) and it was such a trippy experience because it was so bland and not interesting and the characters were just cardboard cutouts of genre stereotypes, but at the same time I was acutely aware that I would have eaten it up if I had read it in middle school. It was a strange experience 😂
I read this series and I remember the first one pretty well, she works out a lot, and then her grandpa dies because they kill you once you turn 80 by poisoning the pudding??? And in the second one, she's walking in the desert after running away from the youth labor camp she followed Kye too but he's not there because he also ran away and they find each other in the desert...I truly have no memory of the third book like what the government was doing to cause a rebellion? IDK. Is there a rebellion? No clue! What was the point of any of this? I couldn't tell ya! I wanna note I read this when I had a horrible cold and had taken a lot of cold meds so I truly thought I imagined this entire thing it was that fragmented in its storytelling...During this same illness, I also read a series about a human who is actually a goblin princess and she gets kidnapped back to the goblin world, and they hate her for being so ugly cause they are goblins and she looks like a model and she hates them because they are ugly and she looks like a model and somehow that is also a real book series.
All I remember from the third one is that the nutrient pill turns out to be a death pill (or was that in the second one), and there's a museum curator who's mean to the main girl
I grew up reading the Matched series and while it's Bad, I feel like describing it as "what if love is illegal 0 . 0" is disingenuous. It's not that love is illegal, it's that you don't get to choose who you end up with. For the whole story most things are like this. You can't choose how you express yourself, because creating art of any kind is illegal. You can kind of choose your job, but ultimately it's from a set of things you already excel at. You can't choose what you eat, everyone is fed the same nutritional oatmeal like mixture. You can't even choose when you die because at 80 you have a whole death celebration and are euthanized. But before this, if you're matched, you must have kids and you must pass on your heirloom. All this for what? The government is so in control that it chooses everything for you. If you go against the system or get in enough trouble? You sent out to get killed by a constructed enemy so they can record the data to try and cure death. This 'perfect' machine set to keep going and churning at optimal efficiency removed from emotion, creativity, and choice just so the people at the top could figure out the answer to immortality. You can't even leave properly because the things they give you to survive if the civilization collapses? Literally designed to kill you. Once you dive into the world, while I'm sure there are flaws i don't remember, Matched has a pretty good premise. A critique on full government control, on limiting personal expression, and accepting death as a permanent thing. The problem with Matched as a series is that it doesn't do much with the themes it sets up, focusing more on the romance far to much and never acknowledging the trauma of being sent to a literal bombing zone were she had to watch the people around her get killed. It meanders and you are so focused on the main character that you barely see much of the world outside her. I couldn't even finish the third because the story just unravels and looses any good steam it had.
Been looking for this comment. The ideas for the world building were really interesting, like why the government would monitor your dreams, but it didn’t do anything with it? Like a lot of people I read all the books by I can’t remember any scene after book 2.
When I tell you, I got the trilogy as a box set in middle school, and I never got any farther than the chapter AFTER the matching ceremony when the Ky/X glitch happened. Like it was so unreadable and I refused to force myself to attempt it again.
i got the trilogy for like ten dollars at a used book fair last year. my favourite part about these books is that they're nice and heavy, so they're good for pressing and drying flowers.
Oh my God your video came at the right time. Didn’t watch the video yet but I have to say my piece. I was watching a video where someone was talking about everything wrong with the selection and I thought of this series but couldn’t remember the name. I kept typing on google a girl inside a glas done and getting nothing. The hate I have for this book when I read it in six grade is too much. Now on to watch your review.
Thinking about when I was a youth and I tried to read matched and I got about 20 pages in before I called it quits and this book killed the ya dystopian genre for me 😭😭
Matched was the first series I ever stopped reading mid-book. Like, as a kid I prided myself on how many books I would read and how I would stick it out even when they were bad, but iirc it was the last matched book where I found myself just frozen in place halfway through the book, trying to keep reading but I just... couldn't. I was so bored.
I read book 1&2 of this in high school. The only thing I temember though, is Cassia's Grandpa's reaction a poem she wrote. For some reason, people in this _Society_ don't learn to write. They can only form written sentences by using full words on a screen. So, for her Grandpa's birthday (I think?) Cass writes him a poem, and he's like "That's nice, but those aren't _your_ words you used." And this confused the fuck out of me because what does it fucking matter? She would have used the same words if she had used a pen. Afaik, there's literally just a list of all words that exist which she used. It's not portrayed as some sorta algorhythm that suggests the next word, at least not to my knowledge.
The reason that so many of these books are flops is that they have nothing interesting to say. Dystopian novels are interesting because they focus on aspects of society/the government. Hunger Games worked well because it focused on class differences, shallowness of celebrity culture and how governments show off their power. 1984 worked well because it commented on government surveillance. Uglies worked well because it commented on keeping the people ignorant and how beauty standards are taking over. “they make love illegal” and “they forced us to have barcodes” says nothing about anything
Watching this I was thinking about reasons why they would have this system, and I was thinking about countries that have declining population that want to have a not-declining population. Especially if there is a war that would cause population loss. Maybe they think that if they match everyone then they can skip the getting into a relationship part and go straight to having babies, I don’t know how this would work. But since it’s an evil government you could explore themes of the evils of eugenics (as I assume this would maybe be the bases of evil governments matching system) , and a societal disapproval a sex for non-procreation, gay love, infertility, and the such. It might not be a good reason but it would be one
I remember this book coming out, my mom reading it loving it, and I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t even think I finished it? Thank you for your service and validation of my childhood DNF.
My problem with both Matched and Delirium is they basically tell the exact same story and they both suck at doing it. Book 1: Haha I'm going to love this person even though the government said I can't. Book 2: Haha I'm going to join this rebellion even though the government said I can't. Book 3: Haha I'm part of this rebellion even though the government said I can't. Did I just describe Matched or Delirium? Who knows? Also I just hate Matched because there was literally no reason Cassia should've fallen in love with Ky. There was no build to their relationship. She just saw his face on the screen and said "oh, okay. I like him." From the book description, I thought she was hoping for Xander to be her match but it ended up being Ky, but it was the other way around.
that would have been so much better- then it would have been like “i know myself and who i love better than the government” instead of having…. no meaning whatsoever
I think I suggested this before when you talked about this book, but here is an idea I had. You take a world where people are matched together and forced to have children under penalty (something like: at this age you must have X children). You have a pair of protagonists, a lesbian woman and a gay man. They are, of course, matched. They become friends and team up to fuck shit up. They find others in similar situations and team up with them as well. We get a full on Rainbow-Revolution. Some of the straight people they include in the revolution have some misguided ideas, which is bad, but understandable under their regime. It could serve as commentary on how we have to deal with "allies", who think they are amazing people but fail to put any research or thought into their support. You could also have the matching happen at a really young age to comment on the habit of "coupling up" children at inappropriate ages that straight people sometimes do (like asking three year old boys if they have a girlfriend). I haven't put much thought into this and I haven't watched this video to completion yet, but I already know my story would be better.
When i read matched as a kid I saved up spare change to buy the whole series at the book fair but I couldn’t even finish the first one because it was so bad. Everyone forgets about this series glad you covered it!
I remember borrowing "Matched" from the school library on a whim in middle school just because I kept seeing the cover and it kept intriguing me. It wasn't the type of book I'd usually read back then (or even now), and I knew from the get-go I wasn't into the premise, but I was just so curious for some reason that it carried me through the whole story and the sequel. I ended up not picking up the third one, but I don't remember why. I did switch from physical school to online around that time, so that would've been a factor. Just can't remember if I decided to stop before that happened, though. Anyway, I was really not into the story just like I thought and I'd probably still not like it if I tried re-reading now, but damn if those covers still don't catch my eyes and make me wanna stare at it forever.
my god, i remember reading these books as they came out, and i thought they were the best books alive. i basically frothed at the mouth when they started explaining the pills in the books
James LMFAOOO the random r kelly clip had me cackling lol. The dystopian era was insane what crazy is even as like a 13-year-old I caught on to the game pretty quick. I was a huge hunger games fan and I read half of the selection series but when I read divergent and chocked thru insurgent that's when I was like ok...I'm being baited lol. I remember on the BN site there was a section that said "books like twilight" and books like the hunger games" "what if love was illegal" "what if you could only be in one faction" these things never work. THG worked because the districts were just where they LIVED it wasn't their personality.
Omg I remember when this came out - I think I still have the books somewhere. I confess I bought it bc I liked the covers, loved Hunger Games and simply craved more, lol. I was surprised how empty three books can feel, and how little actually happened on page as you've said. It always confused me why would the author think these books are finished in this state when it felt like something was clearly missing? It was so bland and the world did not felt live in. The tree pills thing was an interesting element to me, I always remembered that about this series. These books also introduced me to me to poetry I actually liked (since I'm not from an english speaking country, I was not familiar with Tennyson or Frost). But I remember being so dumbfounded after finishing the trilogy. I expected the books to unveil something, to surprise me but like... the ending was so underwhelming omg. Everything dragged and in the end I felt cheated for spending my time reading all that.
i loved reading all these dystopia books when i was younger but i remember finishing this and having no desire to read the sequel at all also i hated the 100 media thing so much
The second book of this series is one of the only books I ever intentionally did not finish. Now it feels like a fever dream, but sth happened that just made me put the book in the back of my bookshelf, never to see the light of day again
Never read this series, and from what I heard of it, that was a good thing. It seems like an interesting premise though, and a fix could be that the female lead got paired with the person that her friend liked, and maybe that friend got paired with who she liked. The conflict would be highly personal and that could lead to some interesting events. Anyway, as always it was nice use of time to watch the vid.
This has almost the same premise of an anime called *"Koi to Uso"* (Love and Lies). Basically Japan uses science or whatever to match 16-year-olds to their perfect match to decrease the low birth rates. Down to the face flashing for one second and then the guy falling in love with that girl too, it's actually crazy how similar that is (I'd still rather read that manga than this lol)
I forgot to manually change the mid-roll ads for this one, so if you had to watch several in the middle of this, I apologize.
How coud you
I don't care, I take breaks to do stretches during ads, and I'd be happy if it gives you a bit more revenue lol
Love the point that teen dystopias have the thesis: "society; bottom text"
At this point I'd rather see the antithesis of the YA dystopia, where the heroine commits war crimes for the government in quelling a rebellion and remains happily married with her state-mandated partner.
That... Actually sounds like a cool grimdark novel
I wrote a story kind of like that once, but the protagonist ended up alone and miserable and stuck in a government job she hated.
@@runningcommentary2125 also an interesting take
I think that that might be what A Practical Guide to Evil is about, but also I haven’t actually read it.
@@eliasbischoff176 Thanks. Hoping to get it published someday.
How to write a YA dystopia:
Step 1: "The world but X is illegal"
Step 2: Replace X with a result from a random word generator
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit!
Step 3 is hitting the word suggestion repeatedly and then to publish that
No, you've got to pick an X that lends itself to both making privileged teenagers feel oppressed & facilitates shipping, such as "being Different from my peers" & "being chosen as Special" (a la Divergent). So "love is illegal" kills two birds with one stone
@@Blindinglights25 Nowadays you can get AI to write for you, even better.
The world but accessibility is illegal
@@Blindinglights25 the first word I got from my random word generator was "murder".
So I'll now write a Hunger Games ripoff where the pritagonist has to survive in a terrible post-apocalyptic society, where _murder_ is illegal! Oh no, how will she survive!
“What if love…. was illegal?! 😮” feels like a very out of touch dystopia premise when that’s been the reality for so many people for the bulk of the last few centuries.
I mean historically allegories and such like that have been used to help make certain social issues more relatable to demographics that otherwise wouldn't really get exposure to them, especially if it were delivered more directly.
Delirium is a dystopia YA book where that is the actual premise.
They probably don't know arranged marriage are still a thing
this is a really good point
@@ofthewilderwoods Delirium did it marginally better than Matched but it was still pretty bad.
The thing I remember that made me the angriest about this entire series is that, close to the very end it’s revealed her younger brother had to identify dead bodies for money in order to survive. What he went through, was far more harrowing than any of the protagonists, and frankly, much, much more interesting.
I want to write one of those awful book too. Let's say... Coats were illegal, and its super cold outside. Can Fea Raincoat oppose the evil regime with her boyfriend Ched Wintermore?
Or will she fall in line with the regime and live out a meaningless, coat-less live with the perfect pretty boy Billy Wetblanket?
Little does she know the fate of the world rests on the decision she makes. Will she choose the path of safety laid out before her or will don her cloak and defy destiny itself?
i literally can't breathe omfg
If you write that, send me a link. Instant buy 😂
I remember reading the entire series as a kid (for some reason, probably boredom). All I remember of it are two scenes were she gets matched and then something something factory conversation. And then nothing else. I think half the reason why I picked it up in the first place was because the cover was pretty.
I...I think they go on a hike sometime?
Most of the books I used to read when I was a kid were picked because they had a pretty cover!
Now I mostly read indie books so the covers are something I avoid looking at too much since they can be extremely derpy looking xD
I haven't the foggiest idea what these books were about but I saw them everywhere. In middle school, at least one girl in my class had one of the books at any given time.
The thing that always stuck out to me was the governenemt slowly poisoning old ppls food to kill them by a certain age
Also a mountain hike with some flagging tape
Same, I read the whole series in middle school. I remember absolutely nothing about it other than the blue tablet thing was actually killing people. At least I think it was the blue one
I just love how ridiculously contrived the dystopias in these "Hunger Games" ripoffs so often are. They're so nonsensical and cartoonish.
Bro what if food was illegal :0
@@epicazeroth the rebellion is housed in an old Subway restaurant
"in the future, food is gone"
- front cover of _Hungry_ by H. Swain
@@mistermiles3271 the rebel leaders all have food names, like Brad Pita
Well I mean it’s hard not to rip off something that is also a rip off. Hunger Games is honestly not even a good rip off of Battle Royale, because it’s almost the same story.
I'm surprised how far you went without talking about the people having to carry around the three pills; that was the only part of the book i remembered. As a kid i was pretty shocked by the discovery that the 'emergency nutrients' pill was actually a 'death' pill.
Her walking off the blue 'death' pill was one of my favorite scenes. As much plot amor that was in effect in that scene, I found it very empowering as a kid.
I read this at the same time I read Cinder and i deadass thought those books were the same for years because they both have a main dude named Kai in it.
Oof.
Trend riding gone wrong.
honestly i should have known from reading this in middle school that i was some type of aro/ace because the entire book i was confused as to why she kept pursuing Ky when she had a perfectly good match in her best friend right there
I'm not aro but I'd be ecstatic if my match was my bestie. My platonic love for them would surpass my need for romantic love.
I’m not even Ace but I was so confused too because the world building was interesting enough. (Editing to add I read it when I was kid and haven’t read it since)
I'm not aro or ace, but when I read this book in middle school I was so confused as to why she immediately started having a crush on Ky. I was not invested in any of the relationships
SAME. as a person on the aro spectrum, I've never understood "insta love" it just has never made sense and will never make sense
Same!!! That’s one of the biggest reasons why I dropped the series, because I just could not get behind whatever what was happening with Ky. She and Xander were such good friends and seemed like they had a much more preferable bond. I was hoping that Ky would just be a red herring turned best friend/cool character but alas….Main Romance Option
Me after picking this book up in middle school and reading a third of it before giving up
DUDE LITERALLY ME LMFAOOOOO
A semi-univeral experience
Props to you. Couldn't get halfway through Book 2.
Happened to me too. The prose was too thick for my comic-reading middle school brain
Wish I could relate. For some reason I finished the series. They were the first books I remember actually hating.
I remember seeing these books in bookstores because of how iconic the covers were at the time. Pretty sure that was the reason for its success.
The green, blue and red bubble that she is slowly emerging from was pretty iconic in the 2010s and I loved it
The designers brought their A game for those covers. They deserve a cut of the royalties imo.
Exactly
So I read this series when I was in the psych ward as a teen. I thought it was so beautiful and loved the series. Got a “rage rage against the dying of the light” tattoo bc that poem really spoke to me. Dying @ how bland the series really is. The psych ward meds were strong lmfao
These videos fascinate me because I worked in my middle school and high school libraries, and I remember all of these books getting checked out and other students gushing over them and just.... Not getting it. Glad to know I wasn't missing out on anything profound.
(This is not a superiority thing, to be clear; I read a ton of shameful garbage, it was just garbage horror, not garbage dystopia.)
I remember being a teen and literally reading the Xanth series for the mere ability to picture centaur tits, so I really can't feel superior to today's kids.
@@naomistarlight6178 you could not waterboard this information out of me
@@naomistarlight6178 I salute your honesty and hope to never imitate it.
My favorite dystopian series is the selection. Is it good? No. Did i enjoy it? More than you can imagine.
Edit: and now i wanna read matched because i’m a sucker for trashy cw stories.
Edit 2: i am commenting as i go, and the 100 limit on things sounds like marie kondo and the whole “i only keep 30 books” thing or whatever in the name of minimalism. Maybe the author was onto something lol
Edit 3: i don’t want to read matched anymore
the selection series is basically the bachelor and I am here for it.
It could have been so great but America really pissed me off.
Was a big fan of this trash TV premise tho
@@Blindinglights25same! Every time america didn’t communicate pissed me off so much. And aspen frustrated me to no end. I wish they had developed the revolutionary aspect of it a little more, but i’m 1000% here for the bachelor with teenagers.
I tried to read The Selection recently because I love trash, I love garbage, I love dreck and I love refuse, and also it was available without paying for it...I got as far as the first page where America is explaining the changes in the holidays. There's plenty of books where I can believe the characters have their own thoughts and motivations that are separate from the author's, but I can't actually buy that in Kiera Cass' writing so the ignorance and racism of _not knowing Lunar New Year is already celebrated in the west_ and _blaming China for forcing it on 'Illeria'_ (or whatever new Dystopian States of America is called) and *then* _failing to understand that the NEW YEAR starts at the beginning of the NEW YEAR_ rather broke my suspension of disbelief
Anyways Happy New Year's & Lunar New Year's, y'all
I simultaneously love and hate The Selection. It's utter trash, but my god, it's entertaining as hell
This comment has a more engaging arc going on than the book this video is reviewing 😄
the arc of a Scythe series is probably the best books to come out of the dystopian boom. I think its one of my favorite book series of all time.
Hey I'm actually reading that right now for my English class! Just finished Matched too, did not enjoy it. Loving Scythe so far though
Scythe was written as, explicitly, a deconstruction of the trend--the author did an interview that mentioned that. It's my favorite book series too.
I love that series! I plan on getting the book of short stories soon
This is literally the only book I’ve ever DNF’d. As soon as her second “match” popped up, I knew what the story line would be and how it would end.
After Twilight & The Hunger Games, every single published YA book(s) utilized the same tropes: a love triangle, a rebellion stirring, overthrowing a government, or a test of some sort, to the point where it became such an over compensated market. The Selection, The Mortal Instruments, Beautiful Creatures, Throne of Glass, The Infernal Devices, Divergent, The Testing, etc. I hope the YA genre readjusts to original ideas, because I read YA years ago but grew tired of the repetition overtime. The Hunger Games was a stand out IMHO, but my only critique I have is the love triangle they tried to implement really takes me out of the serious themes and messages of the series. "Matched" is a repetitive trope, drawn out for 3 books.
I think the love triangle does kind of work in The Hunger Games' favor to some extent. In my interpretation, Gale and Peeta represent each potential future that Katniss has: Gale is destructive rebellion, Peeta is quiet contentedness. It's not a perfect one-to-one, and Peeta was pretty obvious endgame because he gets way more characterization and time with Katniss, but it does add another layer to Katniss's internal struggles.
@@HStorm26I slightly disagree. I understand what Collins did: wrote her own spin on the trope itself, but it's still a love triangle nonetheless. In my opinion, it ages the story, since that slight aspect will always be dubbed "a product of its time". Love triangles in YA were everywhere after Twilight, and THG was a victim of that, too. An over compensated trope, a slight tool for marketing. I still adore the series, but every time I reread or rewatch, it takes me out of the serious tone & messages of the story.
@@Lukedevin8665ed That is pretty fair, just about every story in the YA dystopia craze did drop in a love triangle with less structural integrity than the dystopian government's regime, I can understand the resentment.
the problem with people writing love triangles in YA books is the fact that they’re never actually love triangles, they’re love corners.
for the thing between katniss, peeta, and gale to have been a love triangle, peeta and gale had to have been in love with each other as well. this goes for every other love triangle that is basically just “girl in love with two boys” or some variation there of. if the other two people are not in love with each other as well, it’s not a triangle
I heard that Collins’ editors told her to add more romance focus to the, even though she didn’t want to. Which results in the shitty love triangle. Leave it to big corporate companies to fuck up a story simply for cheap drama points.
Never thought that mixing shipping and government could create such a dystopian world.
There is actually a really good Webtoon called LUFF with a similar premise. There's a mega corporation that has a huge share in lots of different things (like banks, universities etc.) that matches people based on their thumbprints and what percentage of them matches. You're at a societal disadvantage if you don't enter their thumbprint database as in you won't get approved for bank loans and stuff. The main character does it for uni stuff and she has two equally compatible matches. I read it a while ago, but I remember it being really good.
Dude you look amazing in this beard, hair, shirt, everything
I honestly didn't even remember there was a rebellion going on in these books
You know the review will be funny when James sounds like a remorseful criminal confessing his devious acts, right at the beginning of the video.
Keep the good work!
i reread the first two books over lockdown and it was so. they were so Books. when i read them as a kid, i thought they were stupid with how cassia didnt really seem to have any motivations and how nothing in the world is Explained ever. a lot of things clicked, however, upon finding out that the author is mormon. lmao.
Weird how often the explanation is "the author is mormon"
@@cam4636 If I had a nickel for every time the author of a trash series turned out to be Mormon, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
I stopped in the second book when the main character didn't know what dancing was. like tf
You have stared into the maw of madness and made it blink. Bless you sir for your sacrifice for our entertainment.
I've been binging your videos since I discovered this channel a while ago. I even had a nightmare where James gave my book a bad review.
That’s so real
Nighmares are scary
Even as a middle-schooler, I came to realize this series was trash and gave up halfway through the second book. I still don’t understand why there was a love triangle at all, it just seemed so forced for the sake of the trope
I remember reading a lot of these books (often not completing them) when I was younger bc I hoped for something interesting. I hadn’t read the hunger games until way later, which was kinda cool bc when I did read it I was like “wow the hungers games is a breath of fresh air”
Getting demonitized in the thumbnail for the sake of a well-done visual gag? I respect it. love the videos James, keep it up.
Just read Matched, can say for a fact i have no plan in reading the next two. The characters are bland, an the world makes little to no sense. Killing people at eighty with poison yet somehow no one notices this until Cassia? As soon as they said something to the effect of "no one can eat the elderly's food on their last night; it's a law" I knew exactly what was going on, as I'm sure all other readers did.
Also... one hundred of everything? This number is so absurd I'm not even going to question it, but....well, nevermind
That's my problem with YA dystopian, there are only so many directions you can take it: spaceship, evil government, war, monarchy, etc
There are a lot of directions you can take things like an evil government and war, for some reason, YA authors just refuse to do anything different or unexpected.
The only thing I really remember about the story of matched (as told to me by my sister) is that they put a lot of focus on the dresses for the matching
ITS TRUE
omg yeah i remember wanting a green dress like cassias when i read it as a kid
The only thing that had an impact on me in Matched was the inclusion of the poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas and the small theme of censorship and book burning
I too read Matched, back when it first came out. I too have no idea why I read it.
I remember reading this book thinking that there was going to be some sort of queer rep or at least something alternative to “two hot boys like me, I live in oppressive dystopia” because I kept thinking there’s no way that a book could be so tone-deaf as to create a world where love is illegal and not even *mention* queer people or anything like that. Alas, I was a naive child who didn’t understand that yes, such books unfortunately exist.
Nice facial hair. Makes you really look mature.
Edit- good take on the book. Really like your general take on dystopian ya fiction
I think it's interesting that Matched and Divergent make the same mistake of making their dystopian rule that defines how their society is different from ours kind of half-assedly optional. Like you can choose your faction regardless of the test, so the test feels pointless, and in this you can be with someone you're not matched to and it's not illegal or anything. While we're at it how about a reboot of 1984 where Winston just says no I don't feel like going into the torture room, I want to go home, the guy says right off you go then, just like that Monty Python Meaning of Life skit.
I'm calling in sick to the dystopia on Monday.
dude i saw this book on my english teacher's shelf (for students to have silent reading time with), i read the back, and i immediately put it back down. glad to know i made the right choice
There was a book series by Melanie Rawn where the rebel group was called The Rising, but she's a good enough author that given the setting and world building the name fit.
In a world where only hard bread is legal, a group of young rebels are defying the status quo, by using yeast on their bread, they are called... *THE RISING!!!*
i think the only thing these books had going for them was cool cover design
Tbh assigned marriages still are a thing in some parts of the world and the author might have been writing about that, rather than gay marriage or whatever else James compared the plot too.
A comparison between arranged marriages and how ~The Society~ matches young people up in the book can definitely be made. I think James was just comparing gay marriage to Cassia/Ky though, with how they fall in love outside of societal ‘norms’. The idea of having an illegal love, since gay marriage is also still outlawed in many countries. As for what the author intended/what real world aspects she may have been trying to incorporate into the novel,,, I don’t think there was that much thought put into it lol
True, but most arranged marriages are arranged by parents who actually care about the well being of their children, not autocratic governments trying to be evil. A realistic depiction of modern arranged marriage would basically look a lot more like meeting your partner on Tinder, except the profiles you get to see were pre approved by your parents
BTW, there is a pretty good movie called Sairaat which is very similar to James' fixed version of the story. Highly recommend it if you can find an Eng Sub
Woah I just saw this recommended to me on the for you page-my middle school years just flashed into my brain and I was not expecting that
the beard looks fire on you man
I remember reading Matched in middle school, I thought the first book was fine, but god the last two were such a slog I ended up dropping the series entirely. They couldn't even make me care about the characters enough for me to finish the series like Red Queen did.
If you want more pain and suffering try reading the Delirium trilogy if you haven't already. I have yet to get through a third of the first book by hate reading and I just don't think I can do it lol. Really interested in what you'd think of it.
I got through matched (I think I was interested in trying to mentally fix the world building issues more than anything; the entire romance part was just kinda in the way for my aroace ass). I think I read like five chapters of Delirium before I gave up.
I have a pretty strange taste in books if I’m honest.
Delirium is pretty garbage all the way through. You're not really missing anything
core memory from middle school unlocked
I LOVED Matched growing up, not really sure why, but it made me so happy
i picked this series up as a kid and i had to reread the last book about 3 times just to vaguely understand it. i thought the writing was just too intelligent and complex for me... yeah it was the complete opposite
Tbh I'm surprised to hear the series was popular. I've never seen anyone talking about it anywhere online or irl. The only reason I've heard of the series in the first place was because I happened to receive the first book as a christmas present when I was in middle school.
I remember this book being really popular when I was in middle school and a bunch of friends reading it. I never read it cuz I assumed it was mostly a romance and I hated romance in middle school, I guess that was a good decision
I hated most romance (and it turned out I’m aroace so no wonder), but I still read this series. I primarily liked the first book, and mostly because thinking about weird ass world building interested me
If you’re interested in a YA dystopian book that’s somehow even worse than Matched, I highly recommend Bumped. It’s absolutely god awful.
You know you’re that series when everyone else tries to be you. Ain’t that right, Hunger Games?
I have never read or heard of Matched, but the premise sounds similar to this anime/manga named Love and Lies, where a matching system decides who should be paired with who (In Love and Lies, starting from childhood you are surveyed to check for your preference, personality, hobbies, etc.) and its supposed to make a healthy, happier relationship between the couples because they are compatible. And I sort of get why the premise would click, there's also a Webtoon with this plot but the girl is matched with two guys.
Wait wait about the Webtoon, are you talking about like Luff?
that webtoon lowkey sucked 😭
@@brill34536 yeah the ending kinda suck ass
as a child i LOVED the books, and i recently tried to reread the first book and i got about 1/3 of the way through and didn’t even think about it for a week
I don’t remember a whole lot about these books but I DO remember I loved them lmfao. This series and one about a siren girl who had to drive to the middle of nowhere in the woods to sing?? were like the PEAK of writing to me 💀 the whole “we withheld food from you to make you more likely to start a rebellion” think was MIND BLOWING to small me 😭💀 lord have mercy
I remember reading matched in middle school and yet I remember nothing about the charecters or story
I was super into the YA dystopia craze when it happened- I was the exact right age for it- but with all the weird, obscure ones I read, Matched was one I missed. I actually read it for the first time over the summer as prep work for my senior thesis (it involves YA dystopia) and it was such a trippy experience because it was so bland and not interesting and the characters were just cardboard cutouts of genre stereotypes, but at the same time I was acutely aware that I would have eaten it up if I had read it in middle school. It was a strange experience 😂
9/10 video. -1 point for not enough “we live in a society” jokes
(/j)
OMG I never would have expected you to make a video about Matched!! This is a dream come true ToT
I read this series and I remember the first one pretty well, she works out a lot, and then her grandpa dies because they kill you once you turn 80 by poisoning the pudding??? And in the second one, she's walking in the desert after running away from the youth labor camp she followed Kye too but he's not there because he also ran away and they find each other in the desert...I truly have no memory of the third book like what the government was doing to cause a rebellion? IDK. Is there a rebellion? No clue! What was the point of any of this? I couldn't tell ya!
I wanna note I read this when I had a horrible cold and had taken a lot of cold meds so I truly thought I imagined this entire thing it was that fragmented in its storytelling...During this same illness, I also read a series about a human who is actually a goblin princess and she gets kidnapped back to the goblin world, and they hate her for being so ugly cause they are goblins and she looks like a model and she hates them because they are ugly and she looks like a model and somehow that is also a real book series.
All I remember from the third one is that the nutrient pill turns out to be a death pill (or was that in the second one), and there's a museum curator who's mean to the main girl
@@Japanesemuffins99 I got you the first one is called Switched and it’s dubbed the Trylle trilogy
I grew up reading the Matched series and while it's Bad, I feel like describing it as "what if love is illegal 0 . 0" is disingenuous. It's not that love is illegal, it's that you don't get to choose who you end up with. For the whole story most things are like this. You can't choose how you express yourself, because creating art of any kind is illegal. You can kind of choose your job, but ultimately it's from a set of things you already excel at. You can't choose what you eat, everyone is fed the same nutritional oatmeal like mixture. You can't even choose when you die because at 80 you have a whole death celebration and are euthanized. But before this, if you're matched, you must have kids and you must pass on your heirloom. All this for what?
The government is so in control that it chooses everything for you. If you go against the system or get in enough trouble? You sent out to get killed by a constructed enemy so they can record the data to try and cure death. This 'perfect' machine set to keep going and churning at optimal efficiency removed from emotion, creativity, and choice just so the people at the top could figure out the answer to immortality. You can't even leave properly because the things they give you to survive if the civilization collapses? Literally designed to kill you.
Once you dive into the world, while I'm sure there are flaws i don't remember, Matched has a pretty good premise. A critique on full government control, on limiting personal expression, and accepting death as a permanent thing.
The problem with Matched as a series is that it doesn't do much with the themes it sets up, focusing more on the romance far to much and never acknowledging the trauma of being sent to a literal bombing zone were she had to watch the people around her get killed. It meanders and you are so focused on the main character that you barely see much of the world outside her. I couldn't even finish the third because the story just unravels and looses any good steam it had.
Been looking for this comment. The ideas for the world building were really interesting, like why the government would monitor your dreams, but it didn’t do anything with it? Like a lot of people I read all the books by I can’t remember any scene after book 2.
When I tell you, I got the trilogy as a box set in middle school, and I never got any farther than the chapter AFTER the matching ceremony when the Ky/X glitch happened.
Like it was so unreadable and I refused to force myself to attempt it again.
2:45 Laughs hysterically in queer and not-white.
i got the trilogy for like ten dollars at a used book fair last year. my favourite part about these books is that they're nice and heavy, so they're good for pressing and drying flowers.
Oh my God your video came at the right time. Didn’t watch the video yet but I have to say my piece. I was watching a video where someone was talking about everything wrong with the selection and I thought of this series but couldn’t remember the name. I kept typing on google a girl inside a glas done and getting nothing. The hate I have for this book when I read it in six grade is too much. Now on to watch your review.
you do not know how long i have wanted someone to talk about this series i am so EXCITED
Thinking about when I was a youth and I tried to read matched and I got about 20 pages in before I called it quits and this book killed the ya dystopian genre for me 😭😭
Matched was the first series I ever stopped reading mid-book. Like, as a kid I prided myself on how many books I would read and how I would stick it out even when they were bad, but iirc it was the last matched book where I found myself just frozen in place halfway through the book, trying to keep reading but I just... couldn't. I was so bored.
my new young adult Dystopian book "Piss(ed) Off"
Its about a society where its illegal to pee. I'll take my 100k movie contract now.
my least favorite series as a teen... and i read like every version of these dystopian things so that's saying something
I read book 1&2 of this in high school. The only thing I temember though, is Cassia's Grandpa's reaction a poem she wrote.
For some reason, people in this _Society_ don't learn to write. They can only form written sentences by using full words on a screen. So, for her Grandpa's birthday (I think?) Cass writes him a poem, and he's like "That's nice, but those aren't _your_ words you used."
And this confused the fuck out of me because what does it fucking matter? She would have used the same words if she had used a pen. Afaik, there's literally just a list of all words that exist which she used. It's not portrayed as some sorta algorhythm that suggests the next word, at least not to my knowledge.
The reason that so many of these books are flops is that they have nothing interesting to say. Dystopian novels are interesting because they focus on aspects of society/the government. Hunger Games worked well because it focused on class differences, shallowness of celebrity culture and how governments show off their power. 1984 worked well because it commented on government surveillance. Uglies worked well because it commented on keeping the people ignorant and how beauty standards are taking over. “they make love illegal” and “they forced us to have barcodes” says nothing about anything
i have been waiting for a video criticizing this book, i read it in middle school and thought it was so bad😭
Watching this I was thinking about reasons why they would have this system, and I was thinking about countries that have declining population that want to have a not-declining population. Especially if there is a war that would cause population loss. Maybe they think that if they match everyone then they can skip the getting into a relationship part and go straight to having babies, I don’t know how this would work. But since it’s an evil government you could explore themes of the evils of eugenics (as I assume this would maybe be the bases of evil governments matching system) , and a societal disapproval a sex for non-procreation, gay love, infertility, and the such. It might not be a good reason but it would be one
I remember this book coming out, my mom reading it loving it, and I can’t tell you what happened. I don’t even think I finished it?
Thank you for your service and validation of my childhood DNF.
My problem with both Matched and Delirium is they basically tell the exact same story and they both suck at doing it.
Book 1: Haha I'm going to love this person even though the government said I can't.
Book 2: Haha I'm going to join this rebellion even though the government said I can't.
Book 3: Haha I'm part of this rebellion even though the government said I can't.
Did I just describe Matched or Delirium? Who knows? Also I just hate Matched because there was literally no reason Cassia should've fallen in love with Ky. There was no build to their relationship. She just saw his face on the screen and said "oh, okay. I like him." From the book description, I thought she was hoping for Xander to be her match but it ended up being Ky, but it was the other way around.
that would have been so much better- then it would have been like “i know myself and who i love better than the government” instead of having…. no meaning whatsoever
I think I suggested this before when you talked about this book, but here is an idea I had.
You take a world where people are matched together and forced to have children under penalty (something like: at this age you must have X children).
You have a pair of protagonists, a lesbian woman and a gay man. They are, of course, matched. They become friends and team up to fuck shit up. They find others in similar situations and team up with them as well. We get a full on Rainbow-Revolution. Some of the straight people they include in the revolution have some misguided ideas, which is bad, but understandable under their regime. It could serve as commentary on how we have to deal with "allies", who think they are amazing people but fail to put any research or thought into their support. You could also have the matching happen at a really young age to comment on the habit of "coupling up" children at inappropriate ages that straight people sometimes do (like asking three year old boys if they have a girlfriend).
I haven't put much thought into this and I haven't watched this video to completion yet, but I already know my story would be better.
it's soooo bad. I tried to get through the series because I'd already bought them 😭 Learned that day to screen my B&N "Editor Picks" more carefully
I hope you get to read some more stories you might enjoy 😅
I would recommend "The Dispossesed" and the "Earthsea"-Series - both by Ursula K. Le Guin
Lol ifk why you did this either but i appreciate the video - i read this series as a kid and i also idk why i read them all
When i read matched as a kid I saved up spare change to buy the whole series at the book fair but I couldn’t even finish the first one because it was so bad. Everyone forgets about this series glad you covered it!
GOD I remember picking this up in fifth grade fresh off reading and loving Hunger Games, and immediately swearing off YA forever Lmao
1:38 - 1:44 There’s no more air and ppl had to live in domes and pay for air? Isn’t that just the Lorax movie?
I remember borrowing "Matched" from the school library on a whim in middle school just because I kept seeing the cover and it kept intriguing me. It wasn't the type of book I'd usually read back then (or even now), and I knew from the get-go I wasn't into the premise, but I was just so curious for some reason that it carried me through the whole story and the sequel. I ended up not picking up the third one, but I don't remember why. I did switch from physical school to online around that time, so that would've been a factor. Just can't remember if I decided to stop before that happened, though. Anyway, I was really not into the story just like I thought and I'd probably still not like it if I tried re-reading now, but damn if those covers still don't catch my eyes and make me wanna stare at it forever.
I have been hoping for this review for a very long time
I remember reading the first one, but almost all the plot escaped my mind.
my god, i remember reading these books as they came out, and i thought they were the best books alive. i basically frothed at the mouth when they started explaining the pills in the books
James LMFAOOO the random r kelly clip had me cackling lol. The dystopian era was insane what crazy is even as like a 13-year-old I caught on to the game pretty quick. I was a huge hunger games fan and I read half of the selection series but when I read divergent and chocked thru insurgent that's when I was like ok...I'm being baited lol. I remember on the BN site there was a section that said "books like twilight" and books like the hunger games"
"what if love was illegal" "what if you could only be in one faction" these things never work. THG worked because the districts were just where they LIVED it wasn't their personality.
Omg I remember when this came out - I think I still have the books somewhere. I confess I bought it bc I liked the covers, loved Hunger Games and simply craved more, lol.
I was surprised how empty three books can feel, and how little actually happened on page as you've said. It always confused me why would the author think these books are finished in this state when it felt like something was clearly missing? It was so bland and the world did not felt live in.
The tree pills thing was an interesting element to me, I always remembered that about this series. These books also introduced me to me to poetry I actually liked (since I'm not from an english speaking country, I was not familiar with Tennyson or Frost). But I remember being so dumbfounded after finishing the trilogy. I expected the books to unveil something, to surprise me but like... the ending was so underwhelming omg. Everything dragged and in the end I felt cheated for spending my time reading all that.
Thank you James for sacrificing your brain cells for us. A hero we need but didnt deserve
i loved reading all these dystopia books when i was younger but i remember finishing this and having no desire to read the sequel at all
also i hated the 100 media thing so much
The beard suits you very well, you look great!
Just started the video so nothing further to say 😂
I saw this in a bookstore once when I was younger and was curious about it. Sounds like I didn't miss much. =P
The premise of this book series: What if the government told you who you could love and marry... BUT NOT LIKE IN A GAY WAY.
The second book of this series is one of the only books I ever intentionally did not finish. Now it feels like a fever dream, but sth happened that just made me put the book in the back of my bookshelf, never to see the light of day again
Never read this series, and from what I heard of it, that was a good thing. It seems like an interesting premise though, and a fix could be that the female lead got paired with the person that her friend liked, and maybe that friend got paired with who she liked. The conflict would be highly personal and that could lead to some interesting events. Anyway, as always it was nice use of time to watch the vid.
This has almost the same premise of an anime called *"Koi to Uso"* (Love and Lies). Basically Japan uses science or whatever to match 16-year-olds to their perfect match to decrease the low birth rates. Down to the face flashing for one second and then the guy falling in love with that girl too, it's actually crazy how similar that is (I'd still rather read that manga than this lol)
I remember my librarian recommending me this book in middleschool and it was so shitty 😭😭
Oh hey, I know this one! I read it in middle school because I had nothing else to read, and was baffled by the series the whole way through.