ROMANCE:
At this point: the book pretty much stops focusing all together on any post-apocalyptic setting and instead focuses on romance. I’m all for romance, I liked Twilight. The romance portion of this book revolves around a love triangle between America, Pricne Maxon and her hometown boyfriend Aspen (Gale Hawthorne, basically) who has followed her in order to protect her.
Aspen dumped her before she left but almost immediately apologized numerous times, deserted his family to move across country to protect her, did everything she said including sneaking her out of the palace at her behest and saved her life multiple times. America halfheartedly dumps him at the end of the Elite but still gazes longingly into his eyes, holds his hand and takes comfort in him whenever she needs it. Good old Aspen, she always says. She also openly flirts with Maxon in front of him.
That is what is so terrible about America as a protagonist: she knows what she’s doing is wrong. There’s a lot of this type of inner-monologue: “Maybe I shouldn’t flirt with Maxon right in front of Aspen because Aspen is still in love with me and that’s kind of inconsiderate. Nah, I think I’m gonna do it anyway.”
For most of the trilogy Aspen is devoted to her I guess in order to create any sort of momentum or suspense in the love story even though it is SHOCKINGLY obvious she will pick Maxon at the end. Towards the end of the book, Mrs. Cass quite literally sticks Aspen with some random maid just to make sure everyone has a happy ending!!!
Oh, yeah, Maxon. He is super cute and a prince and he seems like a fun jokester, I guess? He is also dating four women at once, something he never has to apologize for. He throws petty temper-tantrums regularly when people tell him what to do even though he is a royal with a responsibility to people other than himself. He won’t stop a dating competition when his country is falling apart because “WHAT ABOUT HIM?” Mostly Maxon sits around whining about how hard his life is as a Prince who never leaves his enormous mansion. The most dynamic thing about his character is the complicated relationship he has with his abusive father who conveniently dies at the end so Maxon can become king.
The entire ending of this book was very convenient. Aspen has a maid-bride, Maxon finds out about Aspen’s connection to America and is mad but gets over it and they get married. Aspen walks America down the aisle which WEIRD. Kriss turns out to be a good rebel but who cares? America’s dad turns out to be a good rebel but also who cares? America gets mad at Kriss for being a rebel even though her dad was one? There’s one last rebel attack but all of our protagonists live. The important thing is Maxon marries America so now he can take care of her forever!
My question is: why set this book in a dystopia? The book is ONLY about America winning the Selection and marrying Maxon so why does there need to be rebels? Why is this set in the future? Why anything? I could get down with a book only about America winning the Selection but what I don’t like is pulling in rebels, a caste system and a dysfunctional society for essentially no reason.
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At the end of the book America asks Maxon if he plans on ending the Caste system and he says “Maybe later.”
Rating: 2 out of 10 (2 just for the fun of the laugh-out-loud plot holes)
Publisher: HarperTeen (May 6, 2014)
Source: Amazon
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ISBN #: 0062059998
Genre: Romance, YA
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