Title: The Selection
Author: Kiera Cass
Publisher: HarperTeen
Year: 2012
Genre(s): young adult, romance, futuristic
Part of a Series: Yes, Part 1 of 5
Rating: 
Why I Read It: I think Goodreads recommended it to me.
Summary: In a future where all the countries we know are gone and combined to make new ones and monarchies have replaced democracy, America Singer is coming of age in the kingdom of Illea – and so is the future king, Maxon. Which means it is time to find him a bride and future queen in a process known as the Selection. Several young women are selected from across the country and brought to the palace to compete for the prince and a chance to be his wife. When America is selected, she reluctantly goes and is certain she will get kicked off relatively quickly. But when she develops a friendship with Maxon, she starts to rethink everything she wants from her life.
Review: I’ll be honest, this one caught me by surprise. I wasn’t sure I was going to enjoy the dystopian, caste-system competition genre but I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and I found myself drawn into the world Cass created as well as her characters.
We’ll start with America. She is our main character and our narrator, so we see everything through her eyes. Her family is considered a “Five,” meaning they are artists. America herself is a talented musician and skilled in several instruments, though she prefers the violin. This doesn’t come up as much in the story once we get to the Selection but it’s there. She’s also a firebrand who is not scared to speak her mind, even to the prince, but quickly figures out how to play the game while staying true to herself.
There are 34 other young women competing in the Selection along with America so it’s hard to keep them all straight, especially as some leave very quickly. Marlee becomes one of America’s best friends, a sweet girl with a bubbly personality – though she does start acting weird toward the end of the book. My personal theory is that she’s in love with America. There’s also Kryssi, who appears to be okay with America, and Celeste, who is the mean girl of the group who is probably the closest thing we have to a direct antagonist in this book. The dynamic amongst the Selected is interesting but I prefer America’s friendship with her maids and how Cass shows how compassionate she is through her relationship with them.
As seems to be required for YA books, there is a love triangle and America finds herself torn between two potential love interests – her secret boyfriend Aspen and Prince Maxon, the young man whose heart she is (reluctantly) competing for. Both have points for them and points against them and Cass develops relationships between the two, though I do feel there is one we’re supposed to root for over the other. I’ll let you figure out who it is.
Let’s discuss Maxon now. He’s an absolute sweetheart though very sheltered. It is his friendship with America that starts to open his eyes to the living conditions of his people, especially those of lower castes. America tells him at the start that she’s there for the food but it takes a little while longer before he realizes she isn’t joking – that she doesn’t have much food at home.That the lower the caste, the less likely it was that they would have regular meals. So he reworks the budget and is able to open up places where people who need food can get it. He does genuinely care about his people – he just is too separated from them to do much good at that point and his father and advisors have him focused on other things, especially uprising from rebels.
I liked how Cass used the rebels, a faceless threat often heard but never seen, as a way to show America – and the reader – that the royal family works hard and doesn’t just live in the lap of luxury, doing nothing all day. They are doing their best for their people and the fact that Maxon has such insight into the rebels show how seriously he takes their threats. I believe it’s one of the points where America’s feelings start to deepen for him.
I’m also highly suspicious of the ruling class of this new world order. There’s a point where the Selected are reviewing history but none of them know it completely. They only have snippets and it seems that whatever education does exist in this world doesn’t include history books. And that means someone is hiding something or doesn’t want the people to know something important – maybe how monarchies were growing more and more absolute and people had more of a say in their governments? That people shouldn’t be pigeon-holed because of a caste they were born into (also hinted at with a mention that one of America’s brothers is more athletically-inclined rather than musically-inclined)?
Something tells me that this is something that will unravel over the series so I look forward to finding out what’s going on in this family!
Bottom line: A great read that pulls you into this new world and keeps you hooked until the last page.
Sex: No.
Moonlight Musing
Do you ever look at dystopian novels and worry that they will become reality?
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