reesespuff6's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Moderate: Blood, Child death, Death of parent, Gore, Classism, Injury/injury detail, Grief, Medical content, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Murder, Violence, Death, and War
prashiie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Spoiler
Very close to the end, Maxon finds out about America and Aspen. He had his doubts before, but trusted her too much to let it influence him. But when he finds out his gut feeling was right all along, he is heartbroken. Then, the southern rebels attack and kill Celeste, just when she starts acting like a human being. At the same time, Maxon gets wounded and this near-dead experience makes him realise how much America meant to him. This makes him forgive her. No need to talk about it, no need to even know if the affair is still going on. The king also died during the attack, very convenient as that also solved a big problem. They were now free to marry each other and to change the country, just like that… The book ends with their marriage and we only get a glimpse of the changes that are waiting for Illéa.Graphic: Classism, Death, Injury/injury detail, Bullying, and Murder
Moderate: Death of parent and Violence
Minor: Grief, Blood, and Vomit
becca_w_'s review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Bullying, Classism, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Infertility, Medical content, Torture, War, Blood, Body horror, Pregnancy, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Physical abuse, Violence, and Alcohol
Moderate: Child death, Cursing, Child abuse, Sexual content, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Confinement, Miscarriage, Murder, Gaslighting, Infidelity, and Terminal illness
kaadee's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I hate America. She is one of the worst characters I’ve honestly read in a book. God, younger me was so enthralled with the series that I barely even gave notice to the actual way she acts. She’s selfish, a liar, and mostly does things for self gain. There are some moments I enjoy her, but the most part I don’t. In my other reviews, I have a basic review but didn’t dive in depth. Im telling you now, I’ve really hated America since the beginning of the series. She cheats on Maxon throughout the whole thing, she lies to him about the most basic things, while he is absolutely devoted to her. Ugh, imagine having a puppy dog man who follows you around while cheat with other men. I don’t even blame Aspen, it’s America’s fault. She strung them both along for the whole series. I hate her.
The plot was okay. I didn’t love it as much as I once did. This book is better than all the others, very fast pace, goes into a lot of the world building (kinda, the world building overall sucks so bad, so the tiny scraps of good I will take, okay?) it just felt very basic. I feel like the author has a very bland writing style. In general, I would recommend it.
I love Maxon so much he’s literally a perfect boyfriend. I am team Maxon 100% but only if I end up with Maxon and America leaves or something. lmfao.
Some problems I have with it is the terrible, terrible depictions of classism and castes. It just feels like a watered down version, a badly thought out version of the real thing. Literally take one second to look at real politics and your whole plot would change, for real.
Graphic: Classism
Minor: Death of parent, Death, War, Toxic relationship, and Gun violence
s_baker_19's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Blood, Violence, Mass/school shootings, Classism, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Gun violence, War, and Murder
braelynm_22's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Physical abuse, and Violence
Moderate: Medical content, Sexual content, and Classism
Minor: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and War
Don't read if fighting and blood causes uncomforted. Some parts can be graphic, but it's not too bad.sienna1508's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, Blood, and Gun violence
Moderate: Classism
kate_drumm's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.25
This series follows our protagonist, America Singer, as she gets selected for a Bachelor-esque competition to win Prince Maxon's heart in the dystopian world of Illea. To complicate matters, she is still in love with her ex, Aspen, who dumped her over his misogynistic ideas of love and providing, and (of course) she's poor.
Firstly, America herself: This girl's name is AMERICA, no really, like the country, SINGER. And guess what her job is. That's right, singing. Throughout the entire series, America is trying to be the not-like-other-girls 'quirky' option for the prince, who of course doesn't like him at the start, wants to be friends, and then falls deeply and obviously in love with him, confused about every one of these feelings all the way. She spends two-thirds of the series confused and needing "time", and the other third expressing every feeling and deep dark secret she has to whoever will listen.
Spoiler
Not to mention all that time she spends sneaking around with Aspen in the castleStupid character names and one-dimensional characters: Yes I know it's been said before, but who names their child, never mind their character 'Tiny', 'Marlee' or 'Aspen'?? I'm aware it's a dystopia and strange character names come with the territory, but seriously, there's a limit, and I think 'Kotor' crosses it a tad too far. Besides the atrocious names, the characters themselves have zero development or dimension. You have the standard Mean Girl, the Quirky Protagonist, the Devoted Best Friend, and the Always Willing to Serve Maids. And this almost never changes.
Spoiler
Besides Celeste, although I think we can all agree one bout of tears and a confession does not a transformation make. That whole situation completely lacked depth and it just felt jarring to suddenly be shown the Nice Girl insteadThe plot, or lack thereof: The general plot outline of this series is obvious, America goes to the palace and tries to win Maxon's heart as the oh-so-loveable prince sorts through all the girls to try and pick a wife. However, Cass tries to include so many subplots and provides no explanation of them nor context as to how they fit into the wider storyline or world.
Spoiler
For example, King Clarkson suddenly declares that the "war in New Asia has gotten worse", and that he and Maxon must leave immediately to deal with it. At no point in the previous chapters did Cass introduce any kind of war to GET worse in the first place, the whole thing was just sprung on us when it was a convenient excuse for Maxon to spend some time away and get some gifts. It would have been fairly simple to introduce this into the worldbuilding or history lessons earlier in the text.Misogyny: The series is FILLED TO THE BRIM with misogyny, yet it's never addressed and is even accepted. America is told that all girls are out to backstab each other, and just accepts this as fact and assumes she will be betrayed by the other Selected girls. America has 2 sisters who seem to have always been perfectly lovely and kind to her, yet she just follows the dreadful idea that all girls are horrible people. The Selected are treated as Maxon's property, who must not be with anyone other than Maxon, even though he can go around and do whatever he likes with the group of about 20 girls. They're all expected to spend extended amounts of time in the "Women's Room", reading magazines, drinking tea, and having mild and pleasant conversations with each other, waiting for Maxon to ask them on a date. This seems like an exceptionally misogynistic and boring way to pass the time, and instead of commenting on this, Cass just treats it as what's expected.
No chemistry between the love interests: To be honest, I've had more chemistry with my maths textbook than either of the main couples in this series have had with each other. Their conversations seem dry and their banter is non-existent. I found it really difficult to root for America and Maxon when I just felt there was NOTHING between them.
Worldbuilding: Cass' worldbuilding is HORRIFIC. We're told that it's a dystopia with Castes, and that the lower Castes (5-8) are poor and often go hungry. However, America (a Five) has her own room, a refrigerator AND a television, and gets popcorn to watch her movies with. This doesn't really paint the picture of the poor starving girl on the verge of homelessness. And it all could have been avoided with some simple explanation. There's also nothing about what kind of area America (or anyone for that matter) lives in: suburbs, rural areas, the middle of a remote forest, who knows?
As for the dystopian world itself, apparently China invaded America long ago after America couldn't pay China the money it owed. As if China was going to invade, sail on over, and just find a secret stockpile of gold bars hidden in the bottom of the White House that they were pretending didn't exist or something. And when China can't find their precious money, they rename the country the American States of China (eye roll, I know) and uses the American people as labour. But then, just to keep things interesting Russia gets involved, trying to fight a war on two fronts. (Which are never specified by the way, so we just have to assume Cass means America and China.) But as we've all learnt from the history classes Cass apparently never took, (seriously, maybe if she'd gone to a history class she'd know that the way she wrote this country's history is preposterous) you should never fight a war on two fronts. While Russia and China are fighting amongst themselves like a couple of spoiled two-year-olds, a wealthy old man decides to just declare himself the new ruler and rename the country AFTER HIMSELF.
Spoiler
As well as sell his daughter off to some other old man, which is absolutely horrendous and only mentioned once before it's brushed off and forgotten about by the wayProblematic ideas of love: Maxon declares that he wants a wife for ILLEA to love, and to be HIS companion and HIS confidante. At no point does anyone question whether he would like to become someone's confidante or someone's companion. Even putting aside all the public figure responsibilities of the princess role (obviously she has to be good for Illea and be decent at diplomacy), surely the Selected girls would like him to be their husband as well? Why does everything in the marriage have to be for him?
Dialogue: The dialogue in this series has to be some of the worst ever written. There is no tension at all, even when characters are arguing or keeping secrets.
Spoiler
Surely there should have been some kind of tension in the 'forbidden romance' of Aspen and America sneaking around the palace, but somehow even that felt stilted and boringOverall, this series could have been a really well-written and developed commentary on misogyny and classism in a dystopian, Caste-based and monarchial society. With fleshed-out characters and a better plotline, Cass could have really had something. Unfortunately, her writing ensures none of that exists. I would say it's written for primary schoolers, but the sexual content erases that as a viable option. I still don't know how she managed to create 3 main books out of something that could have so easily been one 300-page novel. The only reason I would encourage you to read this is so you can laugh about it with your friends and know what not to do if you write yourself.
Graphic: Child abuse, Death of parent, Classism, and Gun violence
Moderate: Sexual content and Misogyny
gothmiku's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Graphic: Death of parent, Gun violence, and War
Moderate: Classism and Confinement
Minor: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, and Infertility
embla_v's review against another edition
4.25
I den tredje och sista delen i the Selection serien med America som huvudperson. Det finns två till böcker med en annan huvudperson.
Urvalet är snart över och America är kvar. Kan kronan och Maxon bli hennes? Vill hon det, kan hon det? Ja och America ska ge allt för ett sista försök att vinna. Samtidigt som urvalet pågår är rebellerna aktiva och attackerna blir värre. Men vad gör man om man tycker de har rätt? Kan hon kanske förändra världen som prinsessa?
I den utvalda får man veta vem som Maxon väljer, frågan är bara om det är America eller någon av de andra tjejerna?
Detta är en fantasy och dystopisk bok. Den fokuserar på kärlek, vänskap och intriger samtidigt som de befinner sig i en värld som är allt annat än perfekt. Skulle rekommendera boken till unga tjejer (och andra) som är 12+.
Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Classism, Death of parent, Injury/injury detail, Sexual content, Bullying, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Sexism, Violence, and War