Monday, May 18, 2015

The Elite by Kiera Cass (Selection #2) Review #87

Author: Kiera Cass
Publisher: Harper Teen
Pages: 323 (paperback)
Source: Chapters :D
Links: Amazon / Barnes and Noble/ Book Depository / Chapters 
Rating: 4/5 
The Selection began with thirty-five girls. Now with the group narrowed down to the six Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon's heart is fiercer than ever—and America is still struggling to decide where her heart truly lies. Is it with Maxon, who could make her life a fairy tale? Or with her first love, Aspen? America is desperate for more time. But the rest of the Elite know exactly what they want—and America's chance to choose is about to slip away.
I definitely enjoyed The Elite a lot more then I did The Selection. Out of all three books, this one was by far my favourite. The cover is absolute breath-taking and I felt a lot more action happened in this novel then in it's predecessor.
I surprisingly found myself falling in love with Aspen in The Elite. In my review of The Selection (click here) I talked about how Aspen was annoying and dragged the book. However, I found myself more drawn to him in this book and wished there was more scenes of him.




The character that annoyed me the most in this novel was Maxon.

I don't think I could ever enter a competition where  your competing to win 1 guy's heart and he is the one, in the end, that gets to choose.  I don't think I could ever be ok with the concept of this one guy  going on multiple dates, and kissing multiple women, and all the while you are constantly aware of it.

America is  constantly torn between Maxon and Aspen. Aspen is faithful whereas there a lot of miss communication between America and Maxon. Maxon is testing the waters and getting closer to Kriss. He is trying to make sure he has a back up if America bails on him or is not committed to becoming his wife.
Maxon and Americ are both afraid to get their hearts broken and that ends up hurting the both of them. I think that if they could both just be honest to each other and America could honestly express how she feels that a lot of the drama they faced could have been avoided.

America is also questioning if she wants to spend the rest of her life as a Queen in the spotlight.

The Elite takes the readers further into Illéa history of how George Illéa came to power and created the monarchy. I really enjoyed the diary aspect of it. The diaries made the chapters that much more enjoyable and interesting. This is the same for letters that America receives from her family.

The readers also witness how messed up Illéa really is with Marlee's caning and America starts to question what true justice is. By the way, Marlee's forbidden relationship was not that big of a shocker to me.

America also starts to fight back against Illéa's norm by suggesting to the public of the dissolution of the caste system.

Maxon's father, the king, becomes the antagonist for the remainder of the series. I actually liked him as an antagonist.  The King abuses his power both onto the people and as a father. Maxon's reaction to Marlee's caning was foreshadowing the abuse that he suffered under his father's hand.

While reading The Selection did not really think much of America. Her character did not stand out and she was neither annoying or special in my mind. However, The Elite made me have a deeper understanding and appreciation for her character. America questions the world she lives in and the people around her. America does what she feels is right even if that gets her in the bad books with powerful people. However, she gains strong allies along the way.

The Norther and Southern rebels become a bigger part of this book too and are bit more fleshed out. Though the southern rebels still remain behind the scenes.

I really wished there was a lot more rebel scenes or the attacks could of been more described/action (instead of them hiding) allowing for more time for the rebel groups to develop.

Kass does a great job at getting readers addicted to her work however, I feel there could have been more scenes that were better described or had been more fleshed out. Lack of description is a really big problem for me while reading The Selection series. I still feel the rest of the elite and The Queen could of been fleshed out as characters.

Overall the book is a fast read and definitely will get you excited about reading The One.


1 comments:

Anonymous said...

I say this every time I see a book from this series, but I really have to try the first book again. It had to have been bad timing, right? I just couldn't get into it. I am glad that you liked this installment. Thank you for reviewing it.

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