Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Let me start off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed "The Selection"--"The Elite" was on my 'midnight release' reading list. "The Selection" had fun characters, an interestingly laid out dystopian caste system and a burgeoning rebellion as a strong background to the very heavy love triangle. In "The Elite" I was looking forward to seeing more of the rebellion, seeing the characters develop and make strong decisions and stick with them--deal with the consequences of those decisions. I expected more of the background story to develop with the maturity of the characters. What we got was a simpering America who ended almost every plot movement with "I just don't know who I should pick", which was so narrow-minded and contrary to the 'girl-power' and social awareness she demonstrated in the first book. I was very disappointed in that "The Elite" seemed to cater to its very young readers focusing on a 'he loves me, he loves me not' love story that was quite artificial. The plot was reduced wholly to America's misunderstandings of other's intentions, childish, selfish, and naive misunderstandings to which only those of a very young readers group could possibly relate, and her very foolish reactions to those misunderstandings. I couldn't believe the number of rhetorical questions America asks, without any answers offered. From chapter four and continued throughout the whole novel... It was impossible. I had to choose. Aspen or Maxon. But how was I supposed to decide between two good possibilities? How could I make a choice that would leave some part of me devastated either way? I comforted myself with the thought that I still had time. I still had time. Cynic warning--the only reason she has or even needs time is to sell more books. While in "The Selection" the story was interesting enough to keep me captivated and to see past the cliched and generally non-dimensional plot construction, "The Elite", if it was possible, becomes even more cliched and even less original. In short, it seems that it was fully a money-making filler to extend a simple series. I have no doubt that anyone could skip this book in its entirety and pick up the third without missing a step. Of course, I'm stubborn and have been sucked into the trashy love-triangle, so I will read the third (hence why I said this book was "OK" rather than I hated it), but I was still scratching my head wondering if there were any other redeeming qualities to reading it besides my innate curiosity of how the story finishes. There aren't. *Also on Goodreads*