Review: The Elite by Kiera Cass

The Elite

Author: Kiera Cass
Series: The Selection, Book Two
Publisher: Harper Teen
Genre: YA Dystopian/Romance
Format: Hardcover, 323 pages
Release Date: April 23, 2013
Source:  Mid-Columbia Libraries

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Thirty-five girls came to the palace to compete in the Selection. All but six have been sent home. And only one will get to marry Prince Maxon and be crowned princess of Illea.

America still isn’t sure where her heart lies. When she’s with Maxon, she’s swept up in their new and breathless romance, and can’t dream of being with anyone else. But whenever she sees Aspen standing guard around the palace, and is overcome with memories of the life they planned to share. With the group narrowed down to the Elite, the other girls are even more determined to win Maxon over—and time is running out for America to decide.

Just when America is sure she’s made her choice, a devastating loss makes her question everything again. And while she’s struggling to imagine her future, the violent rebels that are determined to overthrow the monarchy are growing stronger and their plans could destroy her chance at any kind of happy ending.

My Review:

Meh. I was disappointed. It wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t good either. I was so excited for this book after I read The Selection, and then it just didn’t do it for me. Let’s talk about the good things first.

We got to find out more about how Illea was formed and I found those sections very interesting. History is passed down orally so no one really knows the truth, but America discovers more and more of what really happened as she competes in The Selection. I felt that these details gave the story more depth and upped the stakes for all the characters.

We also get to know the king a lot better in this book. He is basically terrifying and evil. I was waiting for our antagonist to show up and here he is. He is very controlling, so much so that I worry that Maxon won’t really be allowed to make the final choice when it comes to the girls, but that his father will end up choosing his wife for him. As we get to know the king more, we get to see how different Maxon is. His views are completely opposite from his father’s, thank god.

So here’s what I didn’t like. The romance just deflated for me. There was no spark with either Maxon or Aspen in this book. It felt like America was just going through the motions, but she didn’t really do much. In fact, not much happened at all in this book. Sure, girls were eliminated, but other than that the plot just didn’t seem to advance. We get little hints about what the rebels who keep attacking the palace want, but nothing is ever really given away and even the little bit that we can guess doesn’t really tell us anything. There were so many scenes in this book that I just felt were so pointless, I found myself skimming, trying to find the parts that really mattered to the story and skipping over a lot of the other stuff.

America needs to make up her freaking mind. I got so sick of her saying that she was in love with Maxon and ready to be princess, but then two minutes later, she would be making out with Aspen in a dark room. It. Made. No. Sense. In the last book, we saw the teenager in her, but we also saw a level of maturity. In this one, I just felt like she was being a whiny, typical teenager and it made me want to throw the book across the room.

Maxon is so confusing. He says that he loves America, yet continues to make out with the other girls. I understand that his father is controlling him and forcing him to keep some of them around, but that doesn’t mean he has to get intimate with them! In the first book he was such a gentleman and in this book he felt almost sleazy and it made all the magic disappear.

Finally, Aspen is just arrogant and thinks that even though he’s the one who broke America’s heart in the first place that everything is just going to go back to the way it was before if America decides that she doesn’t love Maxon after all. And he risks her life every time he asks her to sneak away with him in the palace. In my opinion, if he truly loved her, he would never put her life in danger like that.

I do not do spoilers in my reviews and I won’t start with this one, but let me just say there is a scene with Marlee that literally brought me to tears. It made me so incredibly angry that I almost had to put the book down and walk away for a while. I hated the scene. I thought it was horrible, but also I thought it was necessary to the plot and well written.

Overall, this book felt stale to me. It almost seemed like filler material until the final book in the series comes out. It was so disappointing because I loved The Selection and expected more out of this one. I will read the third one when it comes out and I hope and pray that it will be better than this one was. Happy reading all! 

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