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Kiera Cass: The Selection - The Selection Book 1

The Selection by Kiera Cass is essentially dystopian style The Bachelor. What if the prince of a country had to choose his wife on live TV from a pool of eligible girls? America Singer is one of those girls. She is fairly low on the caste totem pole (a 6 to the royal 1) and is in love with a boy in her neighborhood. She entered the contest to appease his concerns that he was holding her back. She enters, tries to spoil him, and he breaks up with her. America is then chosen for the Selection and meets Prince Maxon who is nothing like she expected. Will America make it to the end of the Selection?

Ultimately, this book was not the most enjoyable book I've ever read. It wasn't terrible, but I found it predictable, and I wasn't impressed with the ending. I liked the overall idea, even if it wasn't all that original, and I personally have no interest in reality shows like The Bachelor. I thought America's name was unoriginal, and I found her character a little obnoxious. It was also written from the first person which made it rather obvious that America wasn't going to wash out. If you really want to write a contest story where the reader can't guess what's going to happen, don't write in the first person! It was pretty obvious to me that America was going to resist liking Maxon and still hold out her hope for the other boyfriend, and that said boyfriend would show back up, which he did. 

As I stated before, the ending was inconvenient. I feel like there are two kinds of conflict when looking at series: series level conflicts (conflicts that span an entire series) and book-level conflicts (issues that should be resolved within one book). The Selection doesn't seem to tie up any of the conflicts. The contest isn't over at the conclusion, there is still a rebellion, and America still likes both boys. I felt that at least the contest should have finished in the first book, not a narrowing down to the top few.

Overall, in talking about this book with my students (ironically several of my students read this just after I did), most of them liked it. The romance and the main character do seem to resonate with teenage readers. They didn't even really notice the predictability of the plot. My rating did not match theirs at all.

My rating:
  • PG
  • 3 Stars
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