Review: The Selection
America Singer is just your everyday, average girl. She squabbles with her mother, works to help earn money for the family, and has a secret boyfriend that her mother wouldn't approve of. But she is not ordinary. Born into a world where you life is restricted by your caste, America if a Five, born into the caste of musician and other performers... and her boyfriend is a Six, a servant, and meeting him is illegal - not only because they sneak out after curfew, but also because their love is forbidden. Life is difficult enough for America, but when she is selected to become one of Prince Maxon's potential brides, she is thrown into a world surrounded by Twos, Threes, and Fours who all want to become the One.
The Selection is an interesting and fun book. Though is has the initial trappings of dystopia - set in the future after wars, where the citizens are segregated into castes - it lacks the "evil government" aspect. The citizens are separated into castes, with the upper castes having more privileges, but when the plight of the lower castes is brought to the prince's attention is actually seems willing and able to help. It is less of an issue of royalty trying to keep citizens down and more of a case of ignorance of what someone goes through when they don't have the money and resources of the rich. In a way, this mirrors the current class situation in the United States, where the rich don't understand how difficult it is for the poor to scrape by and make ends meet, where sometimes a choice needs to be made between electricity and food.
While this is a romance, it goes deeper than you would initial suspect, bringing class boundaries into play. I think the author did a really good job of making the characters likeable - or not, depending on the character! - and showing the economical and social implications of the society they live in. And though, for the most part, the government seems benevolent, there are hints, cleverly woven in, that something may not be right, either now or in the past.
I will admit that I stayed up way too late last night to finish reading this book.. and I can't wait to read the next!
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