Review for The Elite by Kiera Cass

A Wonderful Mix of Fantasy and Dystopian Concepts

5 Stars. I absolutely loved The Selection and The Elite had me hooked just as much as the first book. It was a wonderful mix of fantasy and dystopian concepts.

America is a really tough character but she gets scared of what the end of the selection will mean for her, and that’s really what this book is about. Either she wins and then she’s the future queen and she doesn’t know if she can handle that responsibility – if she can be a leader when so many of her ideals conflict with how the country is actually run, or she loses which would mean Maxon never cared for her like she did for him, and she really does love him. And then there’s always the third option of dropping out to avoid becoming queen, and heartbreak from Maxon, and returning home to be with Aspen.

America has a lot of doubts about Maxon in this book, partly because he keeps some things from her, and there were times when I was frustrated with America’s paranoia and rash decisions. But considering her situation I think these emotions were perfect. She does lash out and in turn make some bad decisions – decisions that she doesn’t think through or consider the consequences of, but I think it would have been unrealistic had she done anything else. It was obvious to me that Maxon wanted her the most, but being in that situation where she’s competing with all of these other girls for his attention I believed that she would feel unsure at times and question his motives.

I also enjoyed that we got to see so much more of Maxon’s character. He can be this perfect gentleman, caring, and wholesome, even a little naive at times; but there’s more to him than that. We see in this book that he’s not perfect, that he makes some questionable decisions as well, and that his life hasn’t been as easy as America has thought it was. This competition is wearing on him as well.

I was glad to see America work out her feelings by the end of this book. The love triangle in the first book didn’t feel that strong to me and I was glad to see that America wasn’t going to continue to string someone along in the third book. She does give both Maxon and Aspen mixed signals throughout the book, but I could understand why.

Like in the first book I liked the relationships between the girls, and I’m particularly interested to see how America and Kriss’ relationship continues in the third book, or if we’ll see more of Marlee.

Overall I cannot wait for the conclusion of this trilogy, The One, and highly recommend this book.

Read my review of The Selection.