Book Review: "The Selection" by Kiera Cass

Okay, so a book review it is.

I literally just finished the book "The Selection" by Kiera Cass, and I must say I absolutely loved it.

Lets start off with a brief synopsis. SPOILERS!

The book starts off introducing the main character America Singer, a poor girl in a future version of the world, and gives a basic outline of our imaginary future. To put things simply, everything that there is now in terms of division of countries and social classes is completely different. For instance, Illea, assumed to be the USA, is ran by a royal family. And as for social classes, there are eight of them. Each family is defined into a group. One's and two's are the wealthy and can have any job and anything they want. Three's are less better off, and fours even less. But five's and beyond are considered poor and often are barely making it day to day. Also, each class has a particular occupation. For instance, the Singer family, who are fives, work in the arts.

Anyways, America is secretly dating a Six named Aspen Leger. When the Selection, a competition which chooses girls from all over to compete for the hand of Prince Maxon Schreave similar to the popular reality show The Bachelor, Aspen grows weary of his relationship with America. Ultimately, he encourages her to enter, and breaks things off with her shortly before the picks are revealed in hopes of giving her a better future. Low and behold, America, who thought it would be impossible for her to be picked, does in fact get chosen to be one of the 35 girls to join the Selection.

America leaves for the castle, which is often attacked by enemies, and in an unexpected (well for her at least) turn of events, she finds herself enjoying her stay and even begins to have feelings for Maxon. Things get even more complicated though when Aspen comes to the castle as a guard after being drafted. And thus begins the love triangle. The book ends with Maxon surprisingly cutting down the girls to a mere six finalists, including America.

Now to get to the good stuff.

Characters:
I personally love the characters. America is a strong and vivacious red head and is easily relatable for any opinionated young girl. I often found myself saying "Yep, that is exactly how I would have acted." She is an underdog, which everyone loves, and is very easy to fall for as a story book heroine. And the two love interests don't fail to bring the excitement. Aspen, the iconic boy next door, is the epitome of the high school sweetheart but with a twist. Everyone has loved someone in their life that against popular belief, they shouldn't. Though he may be hard headed at times when it comes to what is best for the both of them, he truly does love America and does want to spend his life with her. And as for Prince Charming, he definitely brings back those feelings of wanting to become a princess. He is a rival to America's sass, and also a good leader in training. It is hard not to root for both boys.

Setting:
Illea is a bit confusing, and the set up is probably the only downfall of an otherwise amazing novel. I felt the book lacked a good explanation of how things worked. For instance, in the beginning they used the terms five's and six's without really explaining what it meant so for a good portion of the beginning of the book I was confused as to what was going on. Also, the fact that this was some post invasion world, it would have been a lot better to know more about how things became the way that they were. Hopefully, we will see that depth in the next novel.

Writing style:
Cass does a great job at writing this novel, especially for someone so young. Before purchasing this for my Amazon Kindle I read the reviews and many said that Cass did a poor job at writing and that the book was atrocious. I found a quite different opinion. As an aspiring writer myself, Cass's novel becoming such a quick sensation (even a movie/TV adaption) I found much inspiration from this novel. She showed that even though she was young, she could easily stand up with writers with far more experience.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and cannot wait until "The Elite" is finally released. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys young adult romances or just wants to once more feel like they could be a princess.