For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in the palace and compete for the heart of the gorgeous Prince Maxon.
But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.
Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself- and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.
Lorraine: When I first finished reading this book, I thought, “well that was okay.” It’s kind of like when you sit down with a bag of chocolate and you keep eating even though you know you shouldn’t. After you had, oh, twenty billion, you think, “that wasn’t terrible.” Then you get a stomach ache and realize, oh yes it is terrible.
Okay, maybe not “terrible” but this book is essentially 336 pages of fluff. An “unremarkable” every day girl gets her chance to fall in love with a prince and since that there is apparently enough to sell a ton of books, things like “the plot,” “the setting” and “characters” are overlooked in favor of “OMG LURVE.” I should’ve known when I saw comparisons to The Bachelor.
The first 20% of the book was rather tedious. From page one, you KNOW that this girl is going to get chosen in The Selection, right? It says so right in the blurb you read before you read page one. And yet, it gets talked on and on and on, insulting the intelligence of the reader and at once introducing them to the basic, juvenile style of the narrative. There were a few parts where I laughed out loud at the writing and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t meant to be comedy.
Yes, this is YA, but it felt even younger than that. I review old Nancy Drew books for Childhood Trauma, and one of the things I wail about often is how that series often use a barrage of questions as a means of advancing the narrative. Because kids are dumb. Meanwhile, I encounter this in “The Selection:”
“Why did Mom have to push me so much? Wasn’t she happy? Didn’t she love Dad? Why wasn’t this good enough for her?”
Jesus. We got there by ourselves when you described her pushiness and mood swings, thank you so much. We didn’t need to be hand held all the way there. Most of the book follows this tell-don’t-show policy.
We don’t get any explanation of the world we’re in until about 60% into the book, and by then I felt it was too little, too late. You could see all the seams in this patched together world that can basically be described as such: The United States and debt… and war and stuff… And China! And then, um, a new country. REBELS.
No, seriously, they say rebels a lot. REBELS.
I understand that in a book where the driving action is the one in a million chance that America gets chosen in this competition, I shouldn’t be completely shocked by other contrivances. And yet. One long shot gets America in the palace and then another long shot gets the conflict in there as well. Lucky us.
I hit 95% of the book and realized that even though I made myself read the whole damn thing, there wasn’t going to be anything even resembling a resolution, and that even though pretty much NOTHING has happened the entire time, except the elimination of Selection girls we didn’t know or care about, nothing is going to happen in the last 5% of the book either. Lucky for us, there appears to be a part 2. There is a whole “spreading a plot thin for the sake of a series” rant in here, but I just finished reading this book and I’m tired. REBELS.
America Singer, our protagonist who is seriously named America Singer (WHAT), is not easy to root for, mostly because she’s dumb as rocks. Whether she is brave or smart or pretty is irrelevant because she doesn’t think she’s any of these things and spends lots of time telling us so. She doesn’t even know what’s going on or what she’s feeling most of the time, even when the reader may or may not be shouting, “DUH HE OBVIOUSLY LIKES YOU BECAUSE HE JUST SAID HE LIKES YOU IDIOT CHILD.” Or something close to that.
In fact, not one character or personality sticks out to me at all. Not even Prince Maxon (seriously, WTF is up with these names?)
Maybe some people would like it. Namely if you like:
– LOVE TRIANGLES HOORAY.
– Devastating, life consuming loooove.
– Fluff, no matter if it’s mediocre at best.
– Easy reads.
– Fast reads.
– Stilted dialogue.
– Pretty book covers!
TL;DR: Parts made me really, really annoyed. The remaining parts were “okay.” One emphatic shoulder shrug.
Most of this review can also be found on Goodreads where Lorraine rated it 2/5 stars.