By KruthiNimilya Nandam – Staff Reporter

“The Selection” is the first book in a five-book series by YA author Kiera Cass. America Singer, the main character, is a a member of a middle-class family and they live in a world of kings and queens. 

America is an average 16-year-old. America and her family live in a country called Illéa. In this country, everyone is rated by their caste number – one being the highest and eight being the lowest. America and her family are fives. This means they have barely any money, they are required to get a job as an artist or musician. It doesn’t matter if they are good at it or not. 

America receives a letter from the castle about taking part in The Selection. Basically, it’s a reality show competition where 35 young women come to “fight” to win the prince’s heart. This can be a great support for their family because of their status but America doesn’t seem interested. His mom wants her to participate but something stops her from accepting. This is because America has a secret boyfriend named Aspen. 

They have been together for a while and are even talking about getting married soon. But if they do get married, America would be even more broke because Aspen is a six. Even if they do marry each other, they would be breaking the law. Aspen suggests that America accepts the offer thinking that she won’t be selected. But, later she does get selected. 

When she gets to the castle she unexpectedly meets the prince of IIea, the reason she had a panic attack on the first night there. They had a rocky start but slowly started to be a little more than friends. Keep in mind Aspen and America broke up because Aspen felt that he couldn’t trust America when she went to IIea. Aspen got a job at the castle and he saw that Maxon and America were always together which made him mad.

Later on, America finds out that he was also working there. So they started to meet up to talk about their relationship secretly without Maxon knowing. So now America has to choose between Prince Maxon and Aspen. For readers who enjoy love triangles, this is a really great book to read.

Some of the strong points in this book are character development. Not only does the main character go through changes but the people around her also do as well. It is up to them to choose if they want to be a better person or ruin their reputation because of their ranking in the social class. It is interesting to see the characters grow throughout the story. Seeing these changes shows the reader the ups and downs the main characters come across. In addition, emotion is very vividly written in this book. Maxon has 35 girls to observe and their characters and emotions are expressed through a reality show.

Some weak points are that this book can stay on a topic for a few chapters. “The Selection” starts off slow and near the end, progressively feels a little rushed. It also contains some violent scenes so it may not be suitable for all ages. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars