Young Adult Book Reading Challenges discussion

Is this just me, or Matched and The Giver have A LOT of similarities? I read these two books very close together and couldn't shrug off the feeling that many details of Matched mimicked those of Lois Lowry's book. What do you think?

ooooh i loved The Giver in middle school so i might have to read Matched.

I read The Giver in middle school and I don't remember much of it, doesn't he get a career he has to do? I feel like they're societies are both the same.

The whole idea of society setting the people's lives for them is similar, although I doubt that these are the only two books that explore this theme.

another new book with similarities to the giver is

I started reading Matched last night and immediately sensed the similarities between The Giver and Matched. Can't wait to see if the similarities continue.

I read Matched first and since I saw that many had written about the similarities of The Giver I gave it a try. I liked both books and although there are many similarities I find that several books have similar points. Most of the the books I've read recently (Matched, The Giver, Delirium...) have strong controlling governments which the main characters will rebel against. So in this point, yes the books are similar but even then the differences to me far outweighed the similarities.

Tatiana wrote: "Is this just me, or Matched and The Giver have A LOT of similarities?"

Before I read Matched, I thought that it would be similar to The Giver based on the short description I had heard of Matched. As I got further into the book, it seemed to me that the similarities are very superficial. The Society in Matched uses more technology than the one in The Giver and also seems to have a broader geographical reach. I felt that Matched had more in common with Brave New World than with The Giver - at least as far as the overall mood - although the details are quite different.

I did not have to read this when in school, but I did hear about it from my peers that did. I will have to add it to my list.

I think part of the reason I didn't like Matched very much is because I really liked The Giver (which I've read numerous times). I just couldn't find a way to care about the characters in Matched and what they were going through. I didn't like the love triangle-type aspect. I didn't like Ky. I had such high hopes when I started reading it but it really fell very flat for me.

I havent read that much of it because i have been re-reading THE GIVER. I do see many many similarities so far. To me its almost the same except Condie chose to focus more on the love matches portion than on the Job portion.

Every group I am in that reads Matched brings up the similarities between these two books, but I think readers are failing to understand that it is the genres that are the same, not the details. A dystopia is by definition, a utopia (perfect world) that isn't really perfect. Imagine what your perfect world would look like and now imagine what problems could arise if people's free agency was removed. This is a dystopia. I think people who are crying plagiarism need to read more dystopian fiction. Condie did a great job and to me the only similarity was the controlling society. Matched was really well-done and I think every lover of The Giver should give it a chance.

Kelly, I have read many dystopian books, and I still think that Matched mirrors The Giver too much for comfort.

Tatiana wrote: "Kelly, I have read many dystopian books, and I still think that Matched mirrors The Giver too much for comfort."

I disagree. I think the similarities between Matched and the Giver are superficial. They both deal with young people whose futures are being decided by their societies. Beyond that - there's not much else similar. I pictured the town in The Giver to be very isolated and almost medieval. At least there didn't seem to be a lot of technology in use from what I recall. The Society in Matched is more widespread and is highly technological

I honestly felt that Matched had more in common with Brave New World since everyone was being watched all the time. Everything they did was recorded.

Keep in mind that I read The Giver several years ago and Brave New World several decades ago. I don't recall all the details. I based my judgement on the feeling and mood. Matched is much closer to Brave New World in the mental images I get of the Society.

The only similarities that I can really see other than there being a "perfect" society where jobs are chosen for you (see Soviet Russia), is the death at a certain age with a ceremony, etc. That is very common idea in older literature and even movies (Soylent Green, for instance). Other than that, I'm having trouble finding other similarities that are getting everyone so upset. What are the specifics that you are talking about?

Kelly wrote: "Every group I am in that reads Matched brings up the similarities between these two books, but I think readers are failing to understand that it is the genres that are the same, not the details. A ..."

NOBODY, or not that I got from reading these posts, is crying PLAGIARISM I think we are simply pointing out similarities in the genre as you said. Plus The Giver was written years and years ago Condie is a teacher and Im pretty sure she has come across this book before.Everybody pulls from inspiration and the things around them no thought, no book, no piece of art comes from thin air.It had to Begin somewhere.


Similarities: Your Jobs are picked out and given to you, your mates, when you will have children, decisions made by a "board".

I love both books and The Giver didn't touch much on the romance portion of the world I feel like thats something that Condie gave us.

Sorry i wasn't upset until I was accused of calling someone a thief I would never.

Grace wrote: "Tatiana wrote: "Kelly, I have read many dystopian books, and I still think that Matched mirrors The Giver too much for comfort."

I disagree. I think the similarities between Matched and the Giver ..."

I think I'd like to check out Brave New world.

It's been a while since I read both books (although I read them very close together), but some things that I still remember: the prearranged Matches, uniform clothing, pills, predetermination of everyone's life course, job assignments, around the clock monitoring, euthanized elderly, regulated personal possessions, the precision of the language, the family structure. Even the plots are vaguely similar, only in The Giver the whole hoopla starts with Jonah's work assignment ceremony and in Matched - with Cassia's Matching ceremony.

And another thing I wanted to respond to - jobs were not chosen for people in Soviet Russia. I lived in Soviet Russia, this is simply not true.

@ Tatiana: we are all products of our upbringing. I guess I hadn't realized that my beliefs about Soviet Russia were American propaganda. Interesting. I'll have to do more reading about it. I have a close friend who grew up in Communist Cuba until she escaped as an adult. They were taken from their families at age 7 and put to work on tobacco farms in between school hours. They were told, based on school performance, who was allowed to take advanced courses and then were given a choice of like three jobs they could do. She grew up having to be very careful about what was said in public and private because their homes were monitored for sedition. They would sometimes get beef from the catholic church but they called it 'elephant' to their child so he couldn't accidentally tell on them at school. A teacher once asked her about the elephant meat and she said it was just a joke. She was smuggled out of Cuba to Mexico by the Catholic church for whom she worked. Her stories are quite scary and remind me a lot of matched except for the advanced technology. Sorry about any Soviet generalizations.

No problem, Kelly. There are many bad things can be said about Soviet Russia, but we definitely never were forced into jobs we didn't want.

These things about Cuba are awful. Never heard of it...

I just read the part in THE GIVER about Jonas having to take the pills everyday until he goes into the house of the old because of his stirrings. Interesting. I enjoy finding similarities and common themes in books I read.

Kelly wrote: "...They were told, based on school performance, who was allowed to take advanced courses and then were given a choice of like three jobs they could do."

Hmmmmm - this was the norm for women in North America in the early part of the 20th century - at least the part about career choices.

When I was in high school in the 60's everyone assumed that, if you were a woman, you would be either a teacher, a nurse, or a secretary until you got married. Of course, some women didn't stick with the plan and picked other jobs but they were often strongly discouraged from carrying through with their plans.

I just looked up the Giver on wikipedia to re-read the plot and it still didn't jog a lot of memories. Not sure why I forgot that book like I have. I remember really enjoying it but for some reason it didn't stick with me. I feel like I should re-read it for sure. I remember it being short and easy to get through.

Tatiana wrote: "Is this just me, or Matched and The Giver have A LOT of similarities? I read these two books very close together and couldn't shrug off the feeling that many details of [..."

I know exactly how you feel! I remember reading part of the giver and for example there is the same clothes rule, same food, curfew. It seems very much alike.