My review for the first book in this series, The Selection can be read here. Quick recap: America was owned by China because of debt and stuff, but they said, "Screw 'dat," and revolted. Then society was all broken down, so they made a caste system. Ones are the top of society, eights are the lowest. To improve morale, they also instituted the Selection. Every Prince gets to choose from a pool of eligible young ladies to be his future Queen. It's all the appeal of The Bachelor and fairy tale romance like Cinderella or Kate Middleton.
Or, you can watch this pretty funny video:
In The Elite, the girls are down to six. Celeste is the bitchy one, but she is still around because she's a model and rich and famous. Marlee is the most popular with the people, but she has some mysterious secret keeping her around. Elise is mostly around for her political connections to New Asia. Natalie is a bit of an airhead, but she is the King's favorite. Kriss is Maxon's second favorite. His number one choice, though least popular with the masses, is America Singer. She's the lowest caste left in the Selection. In The Elite, she becomes incredibly tiresome, constantly obsessing about her caste. In book one, America struck an agreement with Prince Maxon to help him choose one of the other girls. Maxon ended up liking America, and America liked him back. Then, America's ex-boyfriend Aspen was assigned to the castle as a guard, and stuff gets complicated.
Most of the second book is America going back and forth between her two suitors. It gets very old, very fast. I understand her objections to Maxon. He starts spending a lot of time with the other girls, which sucks when you're used to being his favorite. Maxon does have to pick a wife, and America still won't make up her damn mind, so he has to try his other options. Also, she pretty much only picks Aspen when she has some crisis about Maxon or being Queen. This makes me think he is really her backup, and I wish Aspen would get a little more self-worth than that. This triangle doesn't get resolved here, otherwise there wouldn't be room for a third installment.
Those pesky rebel forces are also back. Too bad Maxon can't vote them off! (That was horrible, please don't judge me too harshly. It's late and a smoke alarm is blaring at me) Last time, America deducted that they were searching for something. Now, she realizes that it's a book! It seems as though they are looking to destroy the whole caste system, Maxon and his father go off to war, and things are getting interesting.
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