The Elite by Kiera Cass

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.

The Selection by Kiera Cass

This was the book that I wanted to read more than anything this year. I have been requesting advanced copies from Netgalley and we occasionally still get hard copies at the bookstore. Still, the days and months moved on, but The Selection wasn't available from my sources. I thought that I might have to actually wait until the publication date and then purchase or borrow the book from the library or my work. You can imagine my ecstatic surprise at finding the book on what I had considered a secondary source for ebooks. There was quite a lot of squealing, as befits a book junkie and nerd of my stature.

The Selection is a book about an event called the Selection. Every time the Prince of Illea comes of age, they hold a contest for all young ladies between the ages of 16 and 20. A group of 35 is chosen and sent to the palace to get to know the Prince, then one is chosen as the future queen. Illea is strictly separated by a class system, Ones being at the top and Eights being the lowest, basically homeless. Being chosen for the Selection would give a girl the chance to change her status and her life. Unfortunately, it's not what our protagonist wants.

America is in love with her neighbor, Aspen. The main problem is that she's a Five, a musician, but he's a Six. She only enters the Selection because Aspen doesn't want her to have any regrets. To her surprise, she is chosen to move to the palace. Even more surprising, America finds herself actually liking Prince Maxon. She still loves Aspen, but she's also growing closer with Maxon. I really enjoyed the progression of their relationship, and Maxon was funny and amusingly dim around the ladies. To add a little action to what is otherwise a fluffy royal version of The Bachelor, the palace sometimes sustains attacks from groups of rebels who are constantly searching for some mysterious item. We don't find out much about them, but it adds some intrigue.

After all my anticipation, I was worried that The Selection wouldn't live up to my expectations. Fortunately, I loved reading this book. I loved the descriptions of the girls' dresses and the fancy food that they ate at the palace. It made it seem like a fairy tale. My one complaint is that it was too short and I'm going to have to wait even longer to read the sequel and find out who wins the Selection.

I received my miraculous copy of The Selection from Edelweiss, courtesy of HarperCollins. It will be published April 24th.