The Elite (Selection Series #2)

by Kiera Cass

Overview

Kiera Cass's #1 New York Times bestseller The Elite is a must-read for fans of dystopian fiction, fairy tales, and reality TV. This second book in the bestselling Selection series will enchant teens who love Divergent and The Bachelor. The paperback also includes a sneak peek at The One—the thrilling conclusion to the Selection series!

In America Singer's world, a bride is chosen for the prince through an elaborate televised competition. In The Elite, America is one of only six girls left in the running. But is it Prince Maxon—and life as the queen—she wants? Or is it Aspen, her first love?

The Elite delivers the adventure, glamour, political intrigue, and romance that readers of The Selection expect, and continues the love triangle that captivated them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062059970
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Series:	Selection Series
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	1,737
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Kiera Cass is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Selection series, as well as the self-published fantasy novel The Siren. She is a graduate of Radford University and currently lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, with her family. Kiera has kissed approximately fourteen boys in her life. None of them were princes.

Editorial Reviews

In this sequel to The Selection, America Singer continues her deliciously entertaining quest for the affection of Prince Maxon and the title of Princess of Illéa in her country’s time-honored tradition. Now whittled down to six girls, the Elite, the competition has grown even more cutthroat. Though Prince Maxon has made his feelings for America known, she wavers between wanting to be his future bride and following her ever-present feelings for her first love, Aspen, a guard from her hometown who has been assigned to protect her at the palace. Like the first book in the trilogy, this installment offers delightfully royal treatment for America, cat-fighting and tension between the remaining girls, a bit of dramatic action when rebels invade the palace, and, of course, tantalizing clandestine moments with both Maxon and Aspen. America’s “whatever shall I do?” musings can get a little taxing, but all in all, Cass delivers another round of enjoyable, clean, romantic fun for readers who would love to spend just one day in America’s pampered shoes. Ages 13–up. Agent: Elana Roth, Red Tree Literary. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Illéa's Selection pool of potential princesses has been reduced from 35 to six (The Selection, 2012), and the competition's getting tense. Among the six is feisty, iconoclastic America. If Prince Maxon Selects her, as he swears he wants to, she and her lowborn family will rise to Ones in Illéa's caste system. America is finally ready to say yes when her best friend is eliminated from the Selection with upsetting violence after being found in flagrante with her illicit boyfriend. How can America imagine marrying the future head of such an unjust government? Suddenly, former love Aspen seems attractive again. Love triangle re-established, Cass sends America's emotions lurching back and forth between Aspen and Maxon for the rest of the book. Life at the palace is periodically punctuated by episodes of violence, as various rebel factions break in and then fall back. The mischievous Northern rebels steal books; the scary Southern ones leave threatening graffiti. Twenty-first-century readers will wonder at the monumental ineptitude of the palace guard. Cass tries to compensate for the virtually nonexistent worldbuilding of the first book with occasional infodumps and excerpts from the diary of Illéa's founder, secretly lent to America by Maxon. As in the first book, though, the thoughts a well-formed dystopia ought to provoke are buried by the bitchy politics of the Selection and the teeter-totter of America's yearnings. Vapid, but at least it reads fast. (Dystopian romance. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews