Matched (2010) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters edit see section history

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• Cassia Maria Reyes: Cassia is the main character. She loves her family and would do nothing to place them in danger. But when an error occurs with her Matching ceremony microcard, she doesnt know what to do. Or who to trust.
• Xander Thomas Carrow: Cassia's best friend since First School. Cassia gets Matched with Xander. But is she in love with someone else?
• Ky Markham: A boy in Cassia's neighborhood, that used to live on the Outer Provinces, nephew of the Markhams and adopted son.
• Grandfather: Cassia's grandfather is one of her closest friends, even though he's almost eighty. And about to die.
• Abran Reyes: Cassia's father is and official. He digs up the old library.
• Bram Reyes: Cassia's little brother. Bram loves Cassia and his parents. Also his grandfathers watch.
• Molly Reyes: Cassia's mother. Works at the Aborertum.
• Em: One of the local girls who is best girlfriends with Cassia. Also, she is a friend to Xander and Ky. And loves her match.
• Official Standler: The Official who Cassia talks to about her Microcard. Or is she lying?
• Livy: Cassia's friend whom is also a good hiker. And likes Ky.
• Aida Markham: Ky's aunt and adopted mother, Ky's real moms sister.
• Patrick Markham: Ky's uncle and adopted father, Ky's real moms brother-in-law.
• Piper: Cassia's friend and bestie.

Quotes edit see section history

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• “There's a difference between knowledge and technology. Knowledge doesn't fail us.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “That's how I know they are dreams. Because the simple and plain and everyday things are the ones that we can never have.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Each word I write brings me closer to finding the right ones.”

  Cassia

• “When it rains I remember.”

  Ky Markham

• “Every minute you spend with someone gives them a part of your life and takes part of theirs.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “He can play all of their games, including the one in front of him that he just lost. He knows exactly how to play, and that's why he loses every time.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “You can take it," Bram says, "but it will always be mine.”

  Bram Reyes

• “I think she would ask if you wondered.”

  Grandfather

• “It's hard to know which ways to be strong.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “They're different, sometimes, they're different when you're different.”

  Ky Markham

• “This is the difference between us. I live to sort; he knows how to create.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Ever since the day of the mistake with my Match, I've never known which life is my true one...I think a part of me hasn't felt at peace. It was as though I saw for the first time that life could branch into different paths, take different directions.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?”

  Cassia Reyes

• “I wanted to know more about my mistaken Match. But now I feel like finding out about him is one of the ways to find out about myself.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Do not go gentle.”

  Dylan Thomas: "DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT"

• “The music is soft, slow. his chest rises and falls. his lashes are black, impossibly long, the exact color of his hair. Ky is right. I will never hear this song the same way again.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “There's more to say, but we are learning how to speak.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “I don't want to write it back. I love you.”

  Ky Markham

• “It's good to see you jealous once in a while.”

  Ky Markam

• “For what is the point of having something lovely if you never share it? It would be like having a poem, a beautiful wild poem that no one else has, and burning it.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “I feel the faintest heat from the fire below as Ky's story burns, and I wonder if I will ever have the strength to hold onto something. Grandfather's poems. Ky's story. Or if I will always be someone who destroys.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Outside the door, Xander waits for me. It strikes me that this symbolizes what is wrong here. No one can ever really come in, and when it's time to let them, we don't know how.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “We go through a forest that is complicated and full of tangles and there are no stone cairns to guide us except the ones we build ourselves.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Even if HE didn't live his story, enough of us have lived lives just like it. So it's true anyway.”

  Ky Markam

• “How can I explain to my perfectly Matched mother everything that has happened? Everything I've risked? How can I explain to her that I'd do it again? How can I tell her that I hate the system that created her life, her love, her family? That created ME?”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Did Sisyphus have to do this, too? I wonder. Stop for a minute and concentrate on holding firm, on pushing the rock just enough to keep it from rolling down and crushing him, before he could even think about trying to climb again?”

• “The workers with the saws have already moved on to another house now that our tree is down. That part was easy. Tearing up the roots will be the hard part.”

  Cassia Reyes

• “It is strange how we Hold on to the pieces of the past while we wait for our futures”

  Cassia Reyes

• “My father sometimes breaks the rules for the ones he loves”

  Cassia Reyes

• “Everything's going very well. I am having a perfect death so far.”

  Grandfather

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• The Hiking Hills: Where Ky and Cassia shared deep and personal secrets that break rules
• Mapletree Borough: The area in which Cassia, Xander, Em and Ky live.
• Outer Provinces
• Sisyphus River: River that runs through the Outer Provinces

Organizations edit see section history

• Officials: the people who decided that you will die at 80, who your husband/wife is, where you work, and what you do. They monitor your every movement.
• The Society: The government and group in which most people live. They set the rules and mold the world of Cassia and her people.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Aberration: Someone who has committed a crime or has a relative that committed a crime. They can never be Matched with anyone.
• Anomaly: Someone who has done a major crime and have been exiled from The Society. No one knows where they live.
• Artifacts: One of the only differences between people in this generation. They are precious remains of ancestors. Only one per person. Each must be recorded and known by the Officials. Pieces of history, like compacts or watches.
• Matching Banquet: An event where young women and men learn the identities of their future companions. It is a magnificent feast for people who are 17 . You go to the Matching Banquet within the month of your 17th birthday.
• Silver Box: Each citizen carries a silver box in which blue, green and red "tablets" are kept. These appear to be some kind of behavioral medicine. The blue tablet is to keep you alive as long as you have water, the green one for calming. The red one removes memories, excluding the few who for whatever reason do not react to it.
• Final Banquet: When a person reaches 80 in Society, they get their final banquet. They can order whatever they like to eat, and before midnight on their 80th birthday, the pass away.
• First School: The Society's word for the school for younger children. When you turn six you go to First School, and later Second School
• Second School: The Society's word for the school for older children, like a high school.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Red: Red symbolizes intense passion, aggression, and courage. It can also symbolize sexual impulses, danger and shame.
• Green: Green symbolizes nature, growth, hope, youth, sickness, health, spring, money , and envy.
• Blue: Blue symbolizes: youth, spirituality, truth, peace, freedom and distance. All the workers in the nutritional building wear blue clothing. Perhaps this is the sign of a "blue collar worker" or dangerous and menial laborers.
• Poems: Something Ky and Cassia like and share; symbolizes the act of creating.
• Knowledge: People fear that there will be too much knowledge in the future and that one person won't be able to master anything.
• Perfect Society: Can there ever really be a perfect society?
• Technology: The characters seem to have advanced technology, but the focus is not on technology so much as it is focused on how humans relate to their dystopian world. On page 170, Ky is shown to write on the grass using his finger. The main character says no one knows how to "write". Everyone just types.
• Love: Just because you are "matched" with someone, does not mean you will love them. YOU decide who you love.
• Rebellion: It shows how you don't need to give into the society.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Crossed.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ally Condie (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Pennsylvania Young Readers' Choice Award (Finalist, 2012: Young Adult)
• Texas Lone Star Reading List (2011)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PZ7.C7586 Mat 2010
• Dewey: FIC CON

Notes for Parents edit see section history

It teaches your child how important individuality really is. Even though romance plays a large part, it doesn't go beyond kissing.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Teens › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction
• Books › Teens › Literature & Fiction › Love & Romance
• Books › Teens › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Fantasy

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Matched: Official Website
• Allyson Condie website: Official website of author Allyson Condie

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history