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Title: The Elite (The Selection, #2)
Author: Kiera Cass
Published By: HarperTeen (2013)
Synopsis:
The Selection began with thirty-five girls.
Now with the group narrowed down to the six Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon’s heart is fiercer than ever—and America is still struggling to decide where her heart truly lies. Is it with Maxon, who could make her life a fairy tale? Or with her first love, Aspen?
America is desperate for more time. But the rest of the Elite know exactly what they want—and America’s chance to choose is about to slip away. (Taken from Goodreads)
Review:
A while ago I read and liked The Selection, and originally, I planned to read the rest of the series right away. However, I couldn’t get into The Elite at first so I forgot about it until recently when a friend of mine highly recommended it, so I decided to try it again.
While this book wasn’t amazing or incredible, it was intriguing enough that it kept my interest in the entire two days it took me to read it. I appreciated the way the story stayed mostly clean, even though it was a book focused on romance.
So as a whole I did enjoy this book and found it a quick entertaining read. However, there were some downsides. I felt the writing from the first to the second became crippled—the writing in The Elite wasn’t like The Selection; it was worse, if anything. Now granted, it’s still a long way above the average YA dystopian but it was a little disappointing coming off the Selection.
Second, the plot was incredibly predictable and a *bit* repetitive (sarcasm intended). Unlike the prior book, America became unrealistic, flat, and unlikeable extremely fast. She was very inconsistant and her character didn’t line up with her previous character. In one scene she’s certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that Maxon is who she wants to be with, and the next scene Aspen shows up and all of a sudden, she “knows” that she was so silly with Maxon and Aspen’s who she wants to be with. The NEXT scene, though, Maxon is telling her how much he loves her and she feels ashamed she ever did not want him because he is the one she wants to be with, not Aspen. Then the following scene she decides that Maxon is a liar and she should just go with Aspen, because she knows he’s always trustworthy. Her heart moved around every second and she had a different mindset each chapter, not just making the story cheesy and unrealistic, but also making America a little unlikeable as a character.
In fact, America was a lot less likeable than in Book 1. She was naive and her character felt really forced and unnatural. Though maybe all her decisions are true to her character, they were all very rushed and done in a way that seemed forceful and more like the author was trying to meet a deadline than trying to make a real character. Overall this definitely seemed to be a book written quickly, as a lot of this could have been fixed with a couple more edits in my opinion.
Overall:
Despite all this, though, it was an enjoyable enough story. It was clean and decently written. I don’t usually like stories like these, but either way, it wasn’t a bad book.
Negative Content:
None.
Rating: 3.0
Recommended to: Not recommended.