Okay, first may I just say that Cassia is SUCH an awesome name? Man, everyone thinks of the cool names before I do......... 
 BACK TO THE SITUATION. I enjoyed this book. It was fun to read. Blah blah blah. But I kept drawing connections between it and one other book. 
 1984. 
 If I could do capital numbers, I would..... My English class is reading 1984 currently. (Isn't that a weird coincidence?) Maybe I wouldn't have even noticed it if I hadn't been reading the two books at the same time. But here are a few of the similarities: 
 -The incinerators, for trash, or anything else. Yup. 
 -The war going on. Both of the mega countries were at war with some enemy, although in both it was never really clear WHO. In Matched it just never said, in 1984, it kept changing. 
 -The pods, or telescreens, or whatever you call them. Both places have the screens watching adn listening at all times, and it appears that you can't turn either of them off- in 1984, the telescreens are just more annoying. 
 -The government controls all the media. In 1984, they rewrote all the stories. In Matched, they took the easy way out, and instead just limited all the media that people could see, such as the 100 paintings, the 100 poems, the 100 songs...... And so it goes. 
 I am sure that there are other similarities, less glaring, or ones that I have simply overlooked.... 
 There were also a crapload of differences. You know, the society in Matched is cleaner, more perfect, and in my opinion easier to believe. Oh, and the love affair (it wasn't REALLY a love affair...) was between two people who were close enough in age that it wasn't gross.... ;D Also, the people in Matched were smarter. They knew about the government, at least soem of them. They knew what they needed to do to survive. But they didn't follow blindly, or at least they follow less blindly than the people in 1984..... That was what really cinched the book for me. The fact that I could count on the characters not to be stupid.... I liked the entire book Matched better. 
 FURTHERMORE...... I have BURNING HATRED for love triangles. Grrr. I was dreading it when I started the book. And then.... THE LOVE TRIANGLE WAS NOT THAT BAD. No one threw punches. It did not particularly tear Ky and Xander's relationship appart. I really hate it when that happens.... 
 Cassia seemed smart. I liked Ky. I liked his poetry. I liked Cassia's grandfather, and HIS poetry. I liked how they memorized all of the poetry, too. I just like poetry in general...... 
 And so, this book it a 4. Maybe a 4.1. Not a 5, but only because I was thinking of the awful 1984 while I was reading it.... ;D