Similarities Between Ky And Cassia

What personal connections does the author have?
One trait that Ky and Cassia have is that they can write. Writing was forbidden in the society but Ky's father taught him and Ky taught Cassia. Ally's was a teacher before she began writing. She noticed that as the technology was growing, the kid's handwriting was getting laborious to read because they got used to only typing. Ally also says that when her husband went to school, cursive was starting to diminish. Her husband still can't write cursive to this day. Another personal connection Ally has is to the character. Ally states in her blog when someone asked her who does she like better, Ky or Xander, that she can't choose! She says she couldn't possibly choose because she chose her husband's favorite traits and split them among the two.

What makes the author an expert?

In the last book, the story mainly took place in the outer provinces, which are inspired by southern Utah. Ally Condie grew up in southern Utah so she knew what it looked like and what it felt like to be there. Her dad also worked in the canyons as a federal magistrate, so she had lots of experience of the canyon. She says that she'd hide in the crevices of the walls so she made the characters of the book do the same. In this book, one of the main settings is in the urban cities. Ally says that most of them are just cities that she made up but one of them named Camas is based on Idaho Falls which she says has a beautiful river running through the middle of

town.

What was happening in the world that could have influenced the story?
In 2009 (around the time Ally started writing this book) there was a Swine Flu outbreak. In 2010, there was an Ebola outbreak and a Zika outbreak. In 2011, there was an Influenza outbreak in America. The biggest part of this book and the biggest conflict is the plague and the mutated plague. I think Ally thought of this idea because of all the medical outbreaks that had been happening at the time.