Matched by Ally Condie

The basics

Title: Matched

Author:

Series: Matched #1

- Matched (2010)
- Crossed (2011)
- Reached (2012)

Add it: Goodreads

Goodreads Summary:

In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

Matched is a story for right now and storytelling with the resonance of a classic.

Read a full summary of Matched by Ally Condie below. If you can’t remember what happened in Matched and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.

What happened in Matched?

  • Cassia is about to attend her Matching Banquet, where she will be matched to a guy to live with and marry in this dystopian universe. Her best friend, Xander, is with her. The two get Matched together.
  • They are both given a lot of information about each other so they can learn about one another.
  • When Cassia is on her way to work as a data sorter, it starts to snow… or so it seems. It’s actually flakes from seeds from a wood that is being destroyed. Cassia keeps one of the seeds for herself.
  • Cassia returns home after work and examines the microcard she was given with all of Xander’s information. Only, while she is looking at it, another boy’s face appears. The screen then quickly goes blank.
  • While Cassia and Xander are at the game centre, an Official pulls Cassia aside and tells her that the microcard was malfunctioning and nothing more. Cassia tells the Official that she knows who the other boy is. It’s a friend of hers called Ky.
  • Cassia is given a new microcard, and is told that Ky is an Aberration who can’t be Matched. Cassia asks to talk to her grandfather about the situation and the Official allows it.
  • Cassia remembers how Ky saved Xander from drowning when they were younger. Xander wasn’t actually drowning, and was looking for his tablets, but it’s the thought that counts.
  • Cassia visits her grandfather and tells him about the microcard fiasco. He gets upset, and asks her to bring her antique, a golden compact, to the Final Banquet.
  • The Final Banquet for her grandfather is the following day. The family bring him gifts, and Cassia’s gift is a letter. Her grandfather isn’t massively impressed, and so she gives him the seed that she took. Her grandfather shows her a secret bit of paper that’s inside the golden compact, and then he dies.
  • Cassia and her friends go to see a movie. Ky is there, and cries over the death scenes.
  • Cassia goes on a hike and reads her secret note in the woods. It’s two poems. She reaches the top of the hill at the end of the hike, and bumps into Ky. Ky asks if she’ll destroy the bit of paper.
  • Officials search Cassia’s house because the sample of her grandfather’s tissue has been lost.
  • Cassia heads to her father’s place of work and drops the bit of paper there. A worker destroys it.
  • Cassia’s father tells her that he destroyed the tissue sample at her grandfather’s request.
  • Cassia and her friends plant some flowers, and Cassia reflects on the Society and its restrictions.
  • Cassia and Xander kiss.
  • Cassia is tested by the Officials, who tell her that they are keeping an eye on her.
  • Cassia hears her parents talking and realises her father has lied to her mother about the tissue sample. Cassia realises that her parents might not be perfectly Matched after all. This leads her to question her own Match.
  • On another hike, Ky hands Cassia a compass. He tells her that he can write, and she asks that he teaches her.
  • Ky hands Cassia a napkin with his adoption story on it, and also gives her her compact back.
  • Cassia spots Ky teaching a girl called Livy to write and becomes jealous.
  • Cassia goes on a date with Xander. After the date, they find the Officials taking everyone’s artifacts. Not wanting to lose the compass, Cassia asks Xander to hide it. The Officials take her compact.
  • Ky and Cassia talk about Livy in their next hike and it turns out to be nothing. Cassia tells Ky about the poems on the bit of paper.
  • Cassia’s mother arrives home from a work trip and then very quickly goes on another one. It’s all very secretive.
  • Ky tells Cassia about a man called Sisyphus who killed an Official and had to push a rock up a mountain as punishment. He admits that he’s an Aberration, and that he would like to be Matched with Cassia.
  • Cassia is warned against becoming too close to Ky by an Official.
  • Ky hands Cassia a piece of a forbidden poem that he found. He kisses her on the cheek. He tells her that there are Archivists at the Museum who keep these poems. They tell each other they love one another.
  • Cassia has to go to work at the disposal centre where Ky works. She has to put the workers there into different categories depending on how well they do their jobs.
  • Cassia realises that the Society is poisoning the elders, and she puts Ky into one of the better categories so he can leave.
  • Cassia’s mother admits that her work trips have been about her investigating illegal crops. She also says she knows that Cassia likes someone else other than Xander.
  • Ky tells Cassia that the Officials told him that he had accidentally Matched with Cassia. Cassia gets upset and runs off.
  • Cassia tells Xander about her feelings for Ky.
  • Cassia and Ky hike to the top of the hill. He gives her his compass again and a piece of paper. They kiss.
  • Ky is taken away by the Officials and Cassia chases after him. Ky’s father reveals that Ky is being taken away to fight in a war.
  • Everyone gets ordered to take their red pills, which will make them forget the past 12 hours. Cassia only pretends to take hers, which her Official allows.
  • Cassia’s family is to be relocated to a different Province.
  • Cassia visits the Museum and talks to an Archivist about Ky.
  • Cassia speaks with her Official about Ky. No one knows who allowed Ky to be Matched in the first place.
  • Xander tells Cassia that the red tablets don’t work on him or Ky.
  • Cassia’s family board the train for their new home. Cassia’s father says he knew about the war against the Enemy. He promises to help Cassia find Ky.
  • Cassia has to do hard labour in the new Province, and takes the time to think about how she’s going to find Ky.

This is a full plot summary of what happened in Matched by Ally Condie. Check out our recap list for more recaps. If you can’t find what you need, you can request a recap from us!

Other recaps for this series:

Leave a reply

Name*
Email*
Website