The Selection (AKA The Bachelor ... With Princesses?)

 

Well this book definitely didn’t pass the bechdel test.

*Minor spoilers but no major plot spoilers*

Hello everyone, I’m back again with another review of a book I disliked. I have discovered through this blog experience that either I am an extremely critical person when it comes to books, or I just have a knack for picking horrible books that I love to hate. Now I am in no way saying that I did not enjoy reading this book. In fact, I think this was probably one of the most enjoyable books I have read recently, but it was also one of the most problematic and poorly written. 

Here is a quick summary of the story:

Special snowflake America Singer is a five in the oddly formatted and not very thought out caste system that exists in the selection universe. Her role in the society is, you guessed it, singing! Way to state the obvious Ms. Kiera Cass. At the beginning of this whirlwind of a story, with no actual plot, the main character is dating America's Next Top Jerk. (whoops I mean model…) He supposedly is very handsome but is described with scraggly hair so the only thing that comes to mind for me is ramen noodles on his head. Mr. Ramen noodle’s is named Aspen and he is the biggest misogynist to exist. Aspen is a six meaning he is a class below America and is often starving. To show how much she cares about Aspen, America spends her money to make him a nice meal. AND HE HAS THE NERVE TO GET MAD AT HER! Aspen then breaks up with America. Later that week she gets ‘selected’ to be one of the thirty five girls competing for prince Maxon's heart. I would like to insert a quick description of Maxon here:

“He had his own smell, a mix of chemicals that burned out from him.”

Yep, thirty five girls are competing over a guy who quite literally smells toxic. Anyways, throughout the rest of the story the main character (who is notably ‘different’ from the other girls because she doesn't wear makeup. Cue eye rolls) spends her time contemplating which guy she likes best. In the end, she still cannot decide who she is truly in love with and readers have to read TWO MORE books to find out who she ends up with.

With this book, besides the fact that it was so completely ridiculous I was laughing for half the story, I have no good things to mention about it so let’s move straight into the problematic things.

THE MISOGYNY!!

• Never in my life have I read a book that was as blatantly sexist as this book was. I literally did not have words to express my disgust at times and I had to set down the book multiple times throughout the story. Literally in the very first chapters of this novel America tries to make a nice meal for her boyfriend, who is quite literally starving, and as I mentioned in the summary he has the nerve to get mad at her saying:

“America, I’m supposed to be providing for you. It’s humiliating for me to come here and have you do all this for me. … I’m the man. I’m supposed to be a provider.” Page50

Excuse me? This book is supposedly set in the future. Why are the characters reverting back to a 1920’s way of treating women? And honestly, I would be totally fine with this if the author was trying to make a commentary about the misogynistic way women are often treated in society. But no, instead of commenting on how absurdly sexist Aspen is acting, America FEELS BAD for making him feel ‘less manly.’ HUH?

“I felt guilty instead. I had wanted to spoil him not humiliate him” Page50

And on top of that Kiera Cass also portrays women as if they have no goals in life besides being a perfect little wife. America mentions in an earlier scene:

“If only I could sit and patch them [his jeans] up for him. That was my great ambition.” Page15

Sure, some women are stay-at-home moms and there is absolutely nothing wrong with just wanting to be a wife and a mother. BUT, implying that a woman's only goal and ambition in life is to do things for her husband is a really weird message.

The Plot/World building:

• Most of the plot points in this novel made absolutely zero sense. First off, the security in the palace where America goes during the selection must be run by blind gerbils because there were rebel attacks every other chapter. This is supposed to be a palace that the rulers of the entire country live in, why is the security system SO bad?!???? 

Additionally these ‘rebels’ have no actual depth behind them. They break in multiple times but nothing really comes out of these attacks besides the fact that the royals and the selected girls have to hide in a safe room for a few hours. Also we learn basically nothing about the rebels throughout the book. As rulers of a country I would hope Prince Maxon and his parents would know a little more about the people who seem to be attacking them on a weekly basis. 

Besides the rebels the entire caste system is extremely confusing. Basically the castes are dependent on what the status and wealth of your ancestors was when the country of Illea was founded. Your profession as well as status in society is based on your caste. America describes her caste, the fives, as:

“Our caste was just three away from the bottom. We were artists and artists and classical musicians were only three steps up from dirt.” Page3

However, later in the story, at the birthday party of one of the other selected girls, one of the girls invites her favorite singer to the party. The singer seems to be in a much higher class than America and she has a lot of wealth and fame. This is illogical because she is a singer which makes her a musician so she should be a five like America!! It is mentioned that it is possible to change castess either by marrying or buying into a higher caste but it is implied that when you move into a different caste you have to change into the profession of that caste. When America mentions how her sister married a four she talks about how her sister works in a factory no which is a fours job.

This would mean that even if the famous singer friend had bought her way up through the castes she should not have been able to continue being a singer once she became a member of a different caste.

Also as I mentioned with my last point, I wish that Cass had tried to lean into the social commentaries she could have made on real life situations with this novel. Dystopian as a genre is generally used as a way of making social commentaries and I think this book had so much potential in that area but it unfortunately fell short.

The extreme lack of diversity

• This book was so starkly white I was practically blinded. There was basically no diversity in this book whatsoever. Illea is supposed to be a future version of America so I do not understand how one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world became so homogeneous. 

Now technically if you look at the series as a whole there was one girl, Elise, who was from ‘New Asia’ but her storyline felt so stereotypical that I'm not even sure it counts as diversity. First of all, she is only really mentioned in the second book of this series as if she was an afterthought Kiera Cass decided to add. Secondly, Elise’s only personality trait seems to be “honor to my family.” That literally is the only characteristic of her character, which is problematic because it not only is it stereotypical but it also reduces an entire person to just one value they have.

The love interests are terrible

• Our first love interest, Aspen, as previously mentioned has a very misogynistic way of viewing gender roles that really bugs me. Besides that however, There is a scene later in the book where aspen goes into America’s room to see her and:

“He ripped back my blankets in a move both graceful and violent” Page291

HUH? This scene had alarm bells ringing in my head. Not only does he barge into her room and rip off her covers off without any warning but he also starts kissing her and continues to kiss her when she starts CRYING!!!!!

The second love interest is Maxon who apparently is so confused by women (Cue eye rolls x2) During one of the earlier scenes when he is talking to America he says:

“I never know what to do when women cry!” Page128

Oh my?! How confusing?! A crying female!? Whatever could she want?! How do we decode women?!!

He also has this weird thing where he calls all of the selected girls “his dears” and when America confronts him about it his response is:

“You are all dear to me. It is simply a matter of discovering who shall be the dearest”

Yuck.

The constant girl on girl hate

• America is constantly putting down the other girls in her inner monologue. She often acts as though because other girls wear makeup and she does not, that they are inferior to her. Characters in the story also frequently talk as if all women are rude and backstabbers, and instead of questioning that extremely inaccurate generalization America seems totally okay with it. 

For example:

• “I still looked like me when I was done. Of course, so did Celeste, since she insisted on piling it up” Page 93

• “Bariel was beautiful, but in a typical way it was similar to Celeste's style.” Page 101

• “You haven’t spent a lot of time with groups of girls, have you? … The each have their own ways of getting under other people's skin. … Lots of girls give me backhanded compliments, or little remarks, things like that”

I just think it is a little strange that a book that is so heavily marketed towards teen girls displays so much hate towards other girls. And not to sound like a broken record but, again, this would be fine if there was any commentary attached to it. If Kiera Cass had decided to discuss the significance of writing about a society in which relationships with men come first above all else this book could have been an example of great social commentary. Instead, this novel makes it seem like women just like being rude to each other for the heck of it.

Overall, The Selection by Kiera Cass had so much potential to be a great story with underlying social commentary but unfortunately I think the execution was lacking. So although this book was somewhat entertaining to read only due to the sheer ridiculousness of it, I would personally not recommend this book. Read at your own risk.

• Written by Julia.