The Selection

Not going to lie, I kind of rushed into this one. I barely read the synopsis before jumping right into it, mostly because of the pretty cover. Yes, I judged a book by its cover and was quite disappointed. Maybe it's because I'm not a young adult anymore, I don't know, but this book seemed very childish to me. That's not to say I don't enjoy the Young Adult genre immensely, because I do, but this one fell extremely short for me. It seemed many people on my friend's list were reading it and have liked it and I decided to give it a chance for this exact reason.

First of, am I the only one who was extremely annoyed by all the grammar and spelling mistakes I found in this rather short book? I couldn't even believe my eyes, I thought the proofreaders would have done a better job before putting this book out to be published. This issue is rather unforgivable for me because there's nothing that ruins a book more for me than spelling mistakes and improper grammar.

Further on, the writing, in my opinion, was overly simplistic. Like so simplistic that I thought the vocabulary was extremely limited and this book should have been geared toward teens and preteens as opposed to young adults.

The whole fairy-tale, “poor-girl-comes-in-and-makes-the-prince-fall-in-love-with-her plot” was just too naive and uncomplicated for me. I love messed up story lines, the more fucked up, the better. But this one was rather predictable and although once she had the love-triangle going I thought there might be hope yet, once it was clear who she was going to choose, I lost all interest and faith in this book completely.

It also very much bothered me that America, who apparently has been in love with Aspen for over two years or so, just gave up on the relationship so easily, pretty much as soon as she saw Maxon and he started taking an interest in her. I mean, if she actually truly loved him I don't think it would have been so easy for her to just move on and take into consideration the fact that she might start developing feelings for Maxon. I guess that's just from experience but that part wasn't realistic to me. It's like Cass was trying really hard to fit everything together perfectly and therefore her heroine fell short in remaining true to herself, acting instead like any other naive girl who is swept of her feet by the grandiosity of the situation she is thrust upon. I had bigger expectations from America, especially since she seemed different and had known more of life than the other girls.

Also, the book itself was a little too much like a soap opera for me. I mean non of the problems that America encountered in this book were very heart-breaking in any way. Except for Aspen breaking up with her, the rest of it was just girls trying to get Maxon's attention in every superficial way possible. I also didn't like America acting so “whorish” with both Maxon and Aspen (at the same time!), especially because of her love for Aspen that she kept mentioning all throughout the book. It seemed to me that America changed as soon as she arrived at the castle and met handsome Prince Maxon and then was also swept away by the beautiful gowns, grandiose setting and delicious food/entertainment.

This book was definitely not my cup of tea, although I can see younger kids reading this book and enjoying it. Personally, I prefer books that are a little deeper and make me think and ponder long after the book is done. Of course, I did give the next book in this series a chance, especially because it was rather short and a very easy read, although my expectations were much lower this time around.