Crossed (2011) (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: Female protagonist. The society matched her to Xander, but she fell in love with Ky Markham during book 1, Matched.
• Ky Markham: The one Cassia loves. He is an Aberration who was sent to the Outer Provinces in the last book. He taught Cassia cursive writing. He also is in love with Cassia. He lived in the Outer Provinces when he was a child. He fell in love with her in Book 1, and loved her ever since he met her.
• Xander Thomas Carrow: very sweet guy I think he's good for cassia but Ky is a better match.
• Vick Roberts: Works with Ky in the Outer Provinces. Skilled with fishing.
• Indie: A female Aberration who cause her own Reclassification. She runs away with Cassia.
• Eli: A 13-year-old Aberration boy that Ky meets in a village of the Outer Provinces while working as a decoy. Eli reminds Ky of Cassia's little brother Bram.
• Hunter: A farmer who lives in The Carving. Sarah's father.
• Anna Dee Ellis: Leader of the farmers and Catherine's mother, who instructs Hunter to block off the cavern of books.
• Sarah: Hunter's daughter. She died in the Carving at the age of five.
• Catherine: Hunter's wife and Sarah's mom. Died while giving birth to Sarah. Anna's daughter.
• Bram: Cassia's little brother.

Quotes edit see section history

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• “Because in the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.”

  Ky Markham

• “I wish the same thing with Ky, that I could tuck everything beautiful about our relationship inside and seal it up safe, shutting out all the mistakes we've both made.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “Maybe only parts of our stories can keep us safe. The whole can feel like too much to bear, whether it's the story of Society or rebellion or a single person.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “Everyone has something of beauty about them. In the beginning for me, it was Ky's eyes I noticed, and I love them still. But loving lets you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the one you love a pieces, as whys - why he walks like this, why he closes his eyes like that - you can love those parts, too, and it's a love at once more complicated and more complete.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “Because once you love, it is gone. You love and you cannot call it back.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “The Society likes to keep things from us, but the wind doesn't care what we know.”

  Ky Markham

• “I climbed into the dark for you. Are you waiting in the stars for me?”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “"I always thought it was safer to bury stuff," Vick says. "Not always," I tell him, remembering the Hill. "Sometimes it's safer to take it as high as you can."”

  Vick and Ky

• “It takes longer to climb than it does to fall.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “I know you meant that you would always remember me, Cassia, but I'm afraid you might forget.”

  Ky Markham

• “Does loving someone mean you want them to be safe? Or that you want them to be able to choose?”

  Ky Markham

• “But loving lets you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum a beautiful parts.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “I don't make you do anything. Neither does Ky. You know who does, and if you want to take your chances up there, i won't stop you.”

  Vick Roberts

• “You can't ever really kill a river. You can't kill anything that's always moving and changing.”

  Indie

• “A marathon. That's what you call a run like this. I heard a story about it." "Can you tell it to me?" "You don't want to hear it." "I do." "It was at the end of the world. A message had to be delievered. Someone ran to deliever it. Twenty-six miles. Like us. He made it. Gave the message." "And then they rewarded him? Did an air ship come down and save him?" "No, he delivered his message. Then he died." I start to laugh, which isn't good for saving breath, and Indie laughs, too. "I told you that you wouldn't want to hear it.”

  Indie, Cassia

• “This is not a game. He's not my opponent and Cassia's not the prize.”

  Ky Markham

• “How much do we have to show the people we love? What pieces of my life do I have to lay bare, carve out and put before her? Is it enough that I have pointed the way to who I am?”

  Ky Markham

• ““Death,” I say. “ It’s the one thing they haven’t fully conquered. They want to know more about it.””

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “"My mother painted with water,"he says "And my father played with fire."”

  Ky Markham

• “I never named anything I've written before; no reason to; since; it would all have the same title anyway; -for you-; but I would call this one;one night; that night; when we let the world be only you; and only me; we stood on it while it spun;green and blue and red; the music ended; but we; were still; singing”

  Ky Markham

• “It's beautiful and it's real, but our time together could be as fleeting as snow on the plateau. We can either try to change everything or just make the most of whatever time we have.”

  Ky Markham

• “The path is so narrow that we usually have to walk single file, but Ky stays near me, his hand on the small of my back, our fingers brushing and clinging every chance we get.”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “But Vick stops."'you never cut notches in your boot,'"he says, his boice back to even and his eyes back to clam. "'No,'"I agree. "'Why?'" "'No one needs to know,'"i say. "'To know what? How long you've lasted?'"Vick asks. "'To know anything about me,'"I say.”

  Ky and Vick

• “'So why keep him around? Why bring him along?'" "'There's a girl i know back in Oria,'"I say."'He reminds me of her brother.'" "'That's not reason enough.'" "'It is for me,'"I say.”

  Ky and Vick

• “'You're getting weak,'"Vick says finally."'And that might kill you. Might maean you never see her again.'" "'If i don't look out for him,'" I tell Vick, "'I'd be someone she didn't know, even if she did see me again.'”

  Ky and Vick

• “She is strong in ways even the Society can't predict.”

  Narrator (Ky)

• “'It's not knowing how to write that makes you interesting,'"he said. "'It's what you write.'”

  Ky's father

• “When it rains i remember”

  Cassia Maria Reyes

• “He'd emptied out one of his packs at our camp and brought it with him to carry his catch. I find one silver-scaled fish dead inside and put it in the grave too. We leave Vick's coat on him. The hole over his heart where the silver disk once was looks like a small wound. If the Society digs him up. they won't know anything about him. Even the notches in his boots mean something that they won't understand.”

  Narrator (Ky)

• “What's done is done. We have to go forward.”

  Ky

• “I don't fool myself that I hold her together--she does that on her own---but holding her keeps me from flying apart.”

  Ky

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• Because in the end you can’t always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go.

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• But loving lets you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the one you love as pieces, as whys—why he walks like this, why he closes his eyes like that—you can love those parts, too, and it’s a love at once more complicated and more complete.

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• I don’t fool myself that I hold her together—she does that on her own—but holding her keeps me from flying apart.

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• Loving him gave me wings and all my work has given me the strength to move them.

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• If you love someone, if someone loved you, if they taught you to write and made it so you could speak, how can you do nothing at all? You might as well take their words out of the dirt and try to snatch them from the wind. Because once you love, it is gone. You love and you cannot call it back.

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• And it is strange that absence can feel like presence. A missing so complete that if it were to go away, I would turn around, stunned, to see that the room is empty after all, when before it at least had something, if not him.

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• I climb into the dark for you Are you waiting in the stars for me?

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• The Society wants us to be afraid of dying. But I’m not. I’m only afraid of dying wrong.

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• “You’re getting weak,” Vick says finally. “And that might kill you. Might mean you never see her again.” “If I don’t look out for him,” I tell Vick, “I’d be someone she didn’t know, even if she did see me again.”

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• The dead don’t see but I do. I see too many things. I always have. Words and pictures connect together in my mind in strange ways and I notice details wherever I am.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Outer Provinces
• The Carving
• Oria

Organizations edit see section history

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• The Society: The government that controls every aspect of it's people's lives.
• Hundred Committees: One hundred committees created by the Society to select one hundred items to represent each area of the arts (example: poetry, music, paintings)
• The Rising: A group of people who are rebelling against the Society
• The Farmers: A group of people who chose not to join the Society when it first started. Instead, they live apart from Society by growing their own food and building their own townships.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Matching Banquet: Once you are 17 or older you will eventually go to the Match banquet where you will find your most suited partner as decided by the Society.
• Aberration: A person who has done a minor crime and has been exiled to never have a Match.
• Anomaly: Rank below an Aberration. Very rare in Cassia's generation.
• Citizen: A normal person in the society.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• A Perfect Society: Even perfection has its flaws.
• Love triangle: Will Cassia follow her heart with Ky or her head with Xander? Classic conflict of mind and soul.
• Rebellion: Cassia is determined to find the Rising which is the rebellion against the Society.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Matched, and followed by Reached.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Ally Condie (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PZ7.C7586Cr 2011
• Dewey: J CON

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Vocabulary is manageable for older elementary students, but as always content should be monitored. However, this book is not high on graphic content. Suitable for sixth grade and up.

Subjects edit see section history

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

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Matched (I)
• Allyson Condie: Ally Condie's website/blog.

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books with Additional Background Information edit see section history