No Books, No Life

The Selection by Kiera Cass

America enters the selection, not even considering she may be one of the girls chosen. When she is, she will do anything to get out of it- until her secret boyfriend, Aspen, suddenly breaks things off with her. She goes into the selection just hoping to get some money for her family- she never expects to actually get to know Maxon, the prince. What's even more surprising is that he seems to want her to stay and she may just be falling for him. But what about Aspen? And what will happen if she is picked out of the 35 girls to be Maxon's wife and therefore queen?

This was a light fluffy read, and I must admit that I sort of enjoyed it. If you are going to read this book, you should go into it without any expectations for a dystopian, because honestly that's not what it is. It is a "beach read" sort of story.

One of the things I really did not like was the main character, America. She was whiny and annoying and I really could not stand her. She was so completely self-centered and she never really noticed or cared about other people's feelings. The names in this book also drove me crazy. They were just small attempts to make the book more dystopian, and boy did they not work. It just made the book annoying and made me confused. All of the other characters seemed really stereotypical and it sort of annoyed me. None of them were very fleshed out and that made me less connected to the book than I could have possibly been.

Like I said before, the dystopian parts were awful. I didn't even know that was what the author was trying to write until I read the synopsis on Goodreads.

The romance was confusing. One second, America was trying to find ways to get back to Aspen, and other moments she was trying to keep Maxon on the hook. He was clearly into her and it seemed like she used that to her advantage and kept playing him. I did not like that at all- I think you should never pretend to like someone for your own advantage and it should be genuine feelings for a person that makes you date or pursue them.

I would recommend this to people who want a light fluffy read, but anyone who wants to read something with some substance should really find something else.

Thanks for reading!
~Bri