(The Selection #1)
It’s the year 2104. The US has become a monarchy, and a caste system now exists. Prince Maxon Schreave is holding a competition called the Selection, an opportunity for 35 women to compete for his hand. Among the Selected is America Singer, who never would’ve expected this to happen. America is not thrilled to be Selected. She now has to leave her secret love, Aspen, behind. She has no desire to be queen. Soon enough, America will meet Maxon and slowly get to know him. She will become increasingly conflicted throughout the novel, deciding between her familiar home and the new environment she has been thrown into, which might not be so bad after all…
I am usually not a fan of love triangles, but I decided to give this one a shot. I soon regretted it. First of all, the writing style is very, very annoying to get through. Honestly, this can be overlooked depending on your reading level, but for me it was a huge downside. Secondly, the way the author portrays femininity really bothers me. One of the main antagonists is portrayed as very, very feminine which contributes to her villainy, whereas America is portrayed as a tomboy who hates dresses and high heels. It is perfectly fine to like either of these things, but by stigmatizing things that are associated with femininity, the author is teaching young girls that liking ‘feminine’ things is not acceptable. Thirdly, the characters seemed very underdeveloped overall. I didn’t really care about any of them by the end, and I couldn’t stand how America continuously made very poor decisions throughout the novel. I’m sure someone out there might like this book, but for anyone looking for a well-developed plot or characters should probably look somewhere else.
-Anonymous
