The Crown (Selection Series) by Kiera Cass
Includes: The Selection, The Elite, The One, The Heir, The Crown, and Happily Ever After (the novella compilation)
I just finished The Selection Series by Kiera Cass. It took me about 3 ½ weeks to read all 5 books. I did not read the Novella Compilation; perhaps another day. The series was great and I finished book four just a couple of days after The Crown was released in May so I got to read them all as if it was one book. All of these books were bought, some at the RT Convention where I got to meet Kiera. She looks just like her picture on the books and talks to her readers just like her acknowledgements sound. She is also in love with her fans. **I’m a total “Fan Girl”**
Enough about the writer, I know you all want to know about the books, so here you go.
The Selection story starts out with the world a couple of generations after a world war that has changed the lines of every country around the world and has left America under a Monarchy controlled government. Although the Monarchy is dedicated to their people, they are very out of touch, throughout the whole series until the last half of The Crown. The Monarchy heir finds their spouse through the Selection process where 1 girl from every province is picked at random to leave their home and live in the palace and vie for the Heir’s attention and ultimately make a “Love Connection”. Not like the old Love Connection tv show, but more like the Bachelor/Bachelorette tv show.
All of her books are easy reads, with lots of romance, humor, self-reflection, the allure of beauty, lessons in friendship, and politics. If I had a teenage daughter, I would want her to read this series. Kiera shows us that love is messy, and not everything planned to be romantic comes across that way. It is a better view of love and relationships than several other novels I’ve read in the past. Yes there is angst, but there is also conflict and a long discovery journey to find “the one”. To me that reflects real life love. There is no immediate connection of soul mates in her books. The decisions are never easily made because there is so much at stake. This makes it more believable.
Ultimately, she uses this series to give us her views on the political scene, and it is done really well. She was able to really reflect what a Monarchy would look like to modern people today from inside and out. It was nice to see that she didn’t pull any punches with the outcome of a Monarchy society and what it would be like to live in a Caste system. I wasn’t sure I wanted the series to go on after The One, but having read the last two books it makes sense why she wrote them. The story isn’t just about the royal family, she is also telling the story of the Ille’a people. She couldn’t have done that in the first three books, she needed the last two to finish their story. So the series really gives you a 3 for 1 story: 2 romances and then the people. This is a definite must read if you like a little more with your romance and you want your kids to learn great life lessons.
~Fly Girl
