Last time on Matched.com, the same thing that was happening kept happening.

This time, she’s climbing the hill again. At least she’s expressing dissatisfaction with how easy it is and wishing they could move to the other inexplicably capitalized hill.

And when I reached the top there would be a new view and maybe, if he came with me and we stood there together, I would learn even more about Ky.

Because everything has to come back to that. Shut up, Cassia.

But today when she gets to the top there’s already another girl there, Livy. Last chapter Livy got up relatively early and was proud of herself for improving, so it seems that she’s kept working at that. Good for you, Livy! Also, she’s blonde. Does the US have local demographic data? I’m thinking there’s enough information here to guess which areas survived whatever sudden disaster preceded this. (It’d have to be sudden, there’s no way refugees factored into this.)

Ky is drawing on the dirt with her, so obviously he’s got a new writing buddy and isn’t just making squiggles to distract her. It’s not like he could get in a ton of trouble for letting someone know he could do this.

So she sulks. Then they’re told that tomorrow they’ll be going up a new hill, which will probably not be the capitalized hill either. They’re probably working their way up to that.

“Finally,” Ky says behind me in a voice so quiet only I can hear. “I was beginning to feel like Sisyphus.”
I don’t know who Sisyphus is.

They kept angels and not Greek mythology? What the hell are your priorities, society overlords.

Also look, yet another point Ky is unreasonably special. So by age ten he not only knew perfect cursive but also had a classical mythology education, and was an artist?

Anyway, she goes on about Perhaps many girls know Ky’s story and have fallen for the gift of writing their names. because the only reason a guy does things is to get girls to take their pants off. They can’t just want attention or for people to think they’re cool. That’s why boys never do stupid stunts when they’re in all-boy groups, they just sit quietly together.

Cassia then says she realizes she’s wrong but dammit she feels right so she’s going to keep sulking. Then Ky manages to go to try to talk to her and she ignores him. So let’s quickly sum up Ky’s effect on her: first, he made her feel stupid, then he made her so stupid she needed him to explain the complexities of C to her, and now he’s made her stereotypically irrational about relationships. At this rate being around Ky will either end with her on heroin or murdering someone. Possibly both.

Hey, that’s what’s going on here! This is a book produced by the society to tell people about why the matching system is so important! Cassia acknowledges her match is great yet feels a strange pull toward this other boy she thinks must be important despite it going against what society tells her, and it has nothing but negative consequences for her. Her attachment to the poetry and revelation her parents break rules shows that she’s actually of similarly tainted aberrant stock as Ky, which is why she’s so morally weak to fall for him. Don’t be like Cassia, FEMALE CITIZEN!

She goes on to say she’s also bothered by her mother’s absence, so I guess that might be making her react badly to unrelated things. Apparently it’s weird for her to be going on a trip in the summer, and also, Cassia would like her mother there to help with her official Xander date.

When I come out into the foyer, my father and my brother wait for me. “You look beautiful,” my father says.
“You look all right,” Bram says.

This book needs more Bram.

Her dad says her mom will call this evening so Cassia can tell her about the date.

He’s a little wary about the Official, too. I imagine my father coming to the door and saying politely, “I’m sorry, sir. Cassia won’t be able to go tonight.” I imagine him smiling at Xander so that Xander knows he’s not the one my father’s worried about. And then I picture my father closing the door gently but firmly and keeping me safe inside this house.

It’s kind of interesting how this book is handling the whole sexuality thing.

See, traditionally you have the father protecting his daughter’s purity vs the boyfriend who wants to make out with her. Xander’s boy-next-door thing removes the normal worry, because her dad approves of him and wants them to marry. But we can’t just get rid of the dad as owner thing for some reason, so instead it’s coming out like this, her imagining him acting as gatekeeper between society’s decision about her dating and her. They’ve taken the place of the boyfriend he has no control over.

Even her wording is telling. She’s describing it in terms you’d use for being locked up in a tower – he’s protecting her by keeping her inside, not by preventing particular people from getting to her. If I wanted someone kept away, I’d phrase it as keeping them out, not keeping me in. The way it’s written here, she has absolutely no agency and is hoping her dad will protect her from herself – prevent her from doing something she doesn’t want to do.

She goes on to backtrack to say her house isn’t really a safe hideout, which, considering they have something recording anything said in the place and people monitoring even what they burn, should not be a revelation. She doesn’t even mention that – to her, it’s now proven unsafe because the officials searched her dad in it (which is understandable) and because she saw the wrong face on her matching card (which is stupid).

Is there a safe place anywhere in this Borough? In this City, this Province, this world?

Why don’t you explain why you have such a strong association of official and unsafe first? You’ve been raised to believe your society works. You were so confident of that you didn’t have the slightest doubt about watching your grandfather die. Yet every time you see an official you act like they’re about to drag you off to a cell. And don’t say it’s because you’re nervous about the poetry, you were acting like this when you saw the card too.

I don’t think I’m ready to do this and I don’t know why. Or rather, I do know why, but I can’t look at it too closely right now or I know it will change everything. Everything.

That’s great for you but I’d still appreciate the explanation because you’re not making any sense.

Xander is on the doorstep, so we get 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.

So…I guess that’s why they can’t go into people’s houses? Because symbolism? That would explain how it seems completely unconnected to the culture and there’s no sense of a broken taboo when the officials barge in.

The official tells her that they’ll be eating at a private dining hall which seems like it has basically the social role of a restaurant.

I try not to laugh. Xander’s right. Why go to all the trouble of eating at a private dining hall when this outing is anything but private?

Places that place strong emphasis on chaperones do not have people boggling at how weird it is. Also, nothing is private! Private should not be a thing to you, your very dreams are recorded.

We learn that this is a place singles can go or parents who want some private time. I’m assuming this means it’s for whatever kind of dating singles get up to, otherwise it’d make more sense to have just said it’s a place adults eat at.

In the greenspace, I catch sight of a flower bed full of the ever-present newroses and also some kind of ethereal wildflower.

Cassia describes everything green as a “greenspace” and it’s increasingly annoying. That and newroses are the only Orwellian-style terms they have and they look really out of place here.

Also, if it’s getting grown in a flower bed it’s probably not a wildflower. It’s like the author thinks there are two types of plants, roses and wildflowers. People putting wildflowers in front of their stories is rare now, I refuse to believe a culture that didn’t even let you hike for decades and has exactly one patch of semiforest is growing them.

Anyway, flowers trigger a flashback – one night when her mother tucked her into bed Cassia noticed a flower blossom in her hair, which was confusing because it’s forbidden to pick flowers.

Now I know the answer: My father sometimes bends the rules for those he loves.

Wait, what?

Her mother works with plants all day every day. If someone was going to grab a flower blossom, it’d be her. More, she also has the opportunity to do it without breaking the rules, she might be able to get one because a plant was pruned or the blossom was knocked off. The obvious realization here is that adults bend and break rules at times, not that her dad is the center of goodness.

The place is mostly populated by couples because The Boroughs in this area are primarily family boroughs, full of parents and contracted couples and youth under the age of twenty-one. so it seems the society has even finer control over where you live than I’d been assuming. She does say the singles are there on recreational dates so it seems that they’re able to still have relationships fine.

Their standard food is delivered. Xander has a huge amount.

They want me to bulk up so they keep giving me more and more.”

Okay but why?

Cassia’s is tiny.
Maybe I’m making this up, but my portions seem to be smaller lately. I’m not sure why. The hiking and running on the tracker keep me fit. If anything, I should be getting more food, not less.
It must be my imagination.

I’d think that you’d have enough experience to just know by now. Anyway, mildly ominous.

Their chaperone also has a meal, and it’s the same stuff.

I guess the myths about certain departments’ Officials eating better than anyone else aren’t true. Not when they eat in public, anyway.

1) Rumors, not myths.
2) If they ate like that in public, it wouldn’t be just a rumor.
3) You can’t figure out that if someone has a flower it’s because they picked it, but you find it completely plausible officials are secretly getting better food.
4) As far as I can tell so far, you believe the reason your food is tasteless is because of nutrition issues, so you’d believe officials have to eat the same stuff for their own good.

Some of my food stubbornly refuses to wrap around my fork. I twirl the utensil around and around and finally give up and shove some noodles into my mouth, the ends sticking out. I have to slurp them in.
Embarrassing. For some reason my eyes fill with tears.

Well, she’s sure stressed out today. Xander notices but she just shakes her head and indicates it’s nothing.

The official misses this because he’s busy listening to an earpiece, so she then ask why Xander didn’t kiss her last night and Xander says it’s because there were too many people watching. Cassia apparently didn’t even notice, and Xander explains that there’s been a lot of officials hanging out on their street recently. She assumes that means they’re watching her house, and he says he doesn’t think so.

These are basic-level Officials, police officers. They’ve been patrolling a lot more lately and not just in our Borough. In all the Boroughs.”

Huh. So something up but we have no idea what. Let’s hope it stays on this plot and not

Ky must have known. Maybe that’s why he wouldn’t come up the porch steps. Maybe that’s why he never touches me. He’s afraid of being caught.
Or maybe it’s even more simple than that. Maybe he never wants to touch me

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Is falling in love with someone’s story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?

No.