So yesterday I started reading the teen novel The Selection, and then I finished The Selection.Then last night I opened up its sequel, The Elite. Guess what? I crawled into bed at around 8pm with Scott - he caught what I've got - the sore throat/fever/I feel like death sickness. I had The Elite finished by midnight.
I love reading teen novels! They're quick reads for me, which is nice considering that once the school year starts I hardly have any time for reading anything fun, and they remind me a bit of what it's like to be a teenage girl ... wanting to find your true love, hungering for adventure, and being able to believe enough in the impossible to allow yourself to be transported into a somewhat cheesier world than your own. But certainly a world that is sometimes more interesting.
I enjoyed The Elite a lot more than The Selection. In this second novel we get into more of the history of this made up country and the politics run a bit deeper. Our main girl, America, starts to care more about the job of becoming princess than her love for the prince, Maxon. She genuinely worries that she won't be able to handle the job properly and constantly seeks approval from her loved ones. America becomes the obvious change that Illea needs ... the becomes to hope of the people, the thorn in the king's side, and the beaming light of hope for the people in the lower castes. All at the same time she's fighting to prove to the prince that she does love him and fights to keep him as his true personality and deep secrets are slowly revealed. The prince becomes someone we may not like as much as we did before as we see his mask slowly come off, but in the end America realizes that for all his flaws she still has the desire to love him and is ready to fight to become "The One," the future Queen, and the future of Illea. Yes it's cheesy, but it's incredibly enjoyable and I devoured it.
Apparently I was not the only reader to comment on how this book is a hybrid between The Hunger Games and The Bachelor. Other critics have also made the observation, and it becomes even more clear in this book. It's definitely got some similar themes that make it a super entertaining read. There's the political unrest of the people, the caste system, the theme of hunger and what it drives people to do, justice, the main character being a female who likes to fight for justice and thus piss off the elite, and then there's a competition where multiple women fight for one man, and yes that's completely anti-feminist and archaic, but those themes and issues are also explored. In fact, in The Elite, there are rebel groups attacking both the palace and the girls in the selection's families trying to end the selection because these rebels notice that it's wrong to basically sell your daughter to the monarchy to become Illea's property all for the "love" of one man. It's definintely worth a shot reading. Again ... unlike The Hunger Games, this does not strike me as something that would interest any boys, but it could be a good read for young girls, and could even start up some thought-provoking questions for those young girls. Would you join a competition of 35 girls to fight for a prince's love? Would you openly oppose the monarchy in front of your entire country, risking your life and your possibilities for love, if it meant that you would be saving your best friend? Would you publicly announce that you want to eliminate the caste system in a room full of the elite? Would you fight for justice? When stuck in love ... where do you go? Why do you think the entire history of a nation is hidden from its people?
The book is sweet. As one of America's maids points out to her little sister, "love is beautiful fear." Love is a complicated emotion that serves as the center for many of the stories we love as readers. "You know that you've found something amazing, and you want to hold on to it forever; and every second after you have it, you fear the moment you might lose it." I feel this everyday about the love I have for Scott. To lose that love would be worse than losing a limb, and probably more painful. It's even more painful for America who sees her love with other girls everyday, and then she sees her past love, her first love, who she isn't allowed to be with. She feels like she's losing it all. Pile on top of that the politics involved in her life, and you've got a pretty chaotic situation. America and her first love, Aspen (who is now a solider in the palace), are rarities for their country. They were a five and six pulled out of their monotonous lives and placed in the palace ... and now the two of them have opportunities to change their world that they never dreamed of.
I'm incredibly excited for the third book in the trilogy to come out in 2014. We'll see if America does indeed end up with Prince Maxon - the boy with whom she must build up trust again with, or if she ends up marrying Aspen, her first love who was a caste below her, now risen up to caste two as a soldier. Will she become princess? Will she be happy? Will she change the world?
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