Arty -- The Selection by Kiera Cass

Friends, readers, countrymen - I bring you a YA dystopian romance that doesn't completely suck.

I know, I know, le gasp.  This is not to say "GO OUT AND BUY THE SELECTION RIGHT NOW CUZ AWESOME!!!1!!" YMMV and I recommend a library read before committing.

But seriously guys.  AMERICA.  AND MAXON.  AND MARLEE.  THESE CHARACTERS.

Have a Goodreads summary:

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime.  The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth.  To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels.  To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare.  It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her.  Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want.  Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon.  Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself - and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

I don't actually know what's up with that last paragraph, because... there's nothing much like that in the book at all.  Maybe it's a series overview, I dunno.  But it makes America sound all dramatic when she's such a down-to-earth kind of person.

America is what made the book for me, mostly.  She has her Weepy Sensitive Heroine moments, and she can jump to some pretty drastic conclusions without a lot of evidence, but for the most part, she's a really friendly girl.  Her character is pretty consistent, and along with lovely consistency is likeableness.  It's really pretty dang fantastic.  The only thing that annoyed me was the constant "Oh boohoo I'm not pretty" when basically everyone else told her she was - why that needs to be a thing, I have no idea.

Also, MAXON.  Maxon is a sweetheart.  I don't think Cass was really comfortable writing him at first - he came on kind of stiff, and not just the kind of stiff she was going for - but as it went on, he became a teddy bear.  Impulsive and naive, but a teddy bear.  And, before the inevitable Love Triangle of Wangst broke in, he and America had the most. adorable. friendship.  YOU MEAN BOYS CAN BE FRIENDS WITH GIRLS WITHOUT THERE BEING ROMANTIC INTEREST AT FIRST SIGHT?

(We don't talk about Aspen.  Aspen is a testosterone-fueled child who needs to grow up a few years before getting into a serious romantic relationship.  Go away, Aspen, no one likes you.)

Plotwise, the Selection competition - thirty-five girls being gradually whittled away until Maxon chooses his bride - isn't as fierce as the blurb makes it out to be.  Only a few of the girls turn out to be conniving witches; it's even mentioned, a couple times at least, that the majority of the girls are close and don't want to intentionally sabotage the others' chances.  I liked that, since most YA likes to depict large crowds of girls evil queen bees with a few honored exceptions (aka, the protag and her one/two friends).  Maybe it made the plot less intense, but it was unexpected and there wasn't an overload of the author trying to come up with a load of different ways to tell us "MOST OF THESE GIRLS ARE EVIL."

The rebellion groups - nice, realistic touch, there being more than one rebellion group - weren't very intimidating except for one scene, mostly because the worldbuilding in The Selection is the very weakest part of this book. (It tends to be, I've noticed, in most new YA dystopian romance.)  There is the mystery of one group (I can't remember whether it was the Southern or the Northern group) trying to get inside the castle to steal something, but it was hardly a major plot point.

I can't talk about this book without going into massive hysteria about the last chapter, which should be entitled "In Which America does what Every Female in the Typical YA Love Triangle should Do but usually Doesn't."  No spoilers other than that, but it just made me really, really happy and put me firmly in the court of Team America.

Weak and cheesy writing - on an infrequent but consistent basis.  Not really that much conflict - yes.  Almost total lack of worldbuilding - yeah.  However, The Selection has a great MC, a great prince/friend/love interest, and genuine hope for an even more awesome sequel.  Definitely a recommend!

Wednesday Scrolls -- RAMFAP Requiem AKA July Review

Last year, RAMFAP was quite a momentous occassion. I read so many books. Had so much fun. Not that I didn't have any fun this year either... 

 

For RAMFAP 2013, I read a total of 7 favorite books, with 1,612 pages read not counting an unpaged manga and an unpaged children's book. I actually read a total of 11 books in July, with 3,328 pages read, but not all of those were for RAMFAP. Honestly, I don't think I did too shabby considering all the stuff I've been busy with.

 

Here's my favorites book list from RAMFAP 2013:

 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr, John Archambault, and Lois Ehlert
Generation Dead by Daniel Waters

Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw

Dragon Flight by Jessica Day George

Flora Segunda by Ysabeau S. Wilce

Maid-Sama! Vol. 6 by Hiro Fujiwara

Night Gate by Isobelle Carmody

 

It's interesting to note that Night Gate is the only book that has been in both RAMFAP lists so far -- I tried to keep this year's priority list limited to the books I didn't get to last year, but Night Gate snuck to the top anyway.

 

How did y'all do, if y'all participated? I'm hoping for a good August!

 

--Persy


Arty here.  Yes.  The Arty who hasn't written a review in ages.  COLLEGE, GUYS. *lame excuses*

For RAMFAP... I reread one book.  And it turns out I probably shouldn't have, because The Angel Experiment, the first book in the Maximum Ride series, was a lot better when I was thirteen than it is now.  I still really like the story, but... sorry, Max, you're just not one of my favorites anymore.  Except for maybe nostalgia.

I did get to read around thirteen other books - what can I say, July caught me when my to-read stacks were high and I had succumbed to multiple library temptation.  Some of them were pretty lame - the Supernatural tie-in novel, One Year Gone, was disappointing, as was Mortlock by Jon Mayhew (it had black page edges - black page edges!) - but some of them were pretty dang fantastic and destined to end up on the next RAMFAP list.  Such Wicked Intent, the second book in the Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein series by Kenneth Oppel, and Trickster: Native American Tales: A Graphic Collection by Matt Dembicki are destined for my favorites shelf.

August is already looking pretty good - hope you all have similar prospects!

-Arty 

Persy - Wednesday Scrolls - RAMFAP 2013!!

It's that time of the year again, folks... Yes, it's back. Are you ready?

 

For RAMFAP 2013!!!!!!

 

A quick recap of what it is: Reread-As-Many-Favorites-As-Possible month! And it's as easy as that. All you have to do is reread a minimum of one favorite book. I like to make it a challenge and see how many I can squeeze into the month of July, but that's definitely not a requirement. All it is is one month devoted to favorite books. Other than that, it's open to everyone's unique interpretation.

 

I honestly wasn't sure I would participate this year, because my reading kind of fell behind due to ballet, school, and college prep. We were in a week into July when I realized how ridiculous I was being. Heck yeah I'm gonna participate! And you should too! There's really no excuse not to pick up a favorite novel and give it another read!

 

So please, if you do participate, let us know! Start a conversation! Both Arty and I will gladly talk for hours on the subject of literature (as you've surely discovered by now). What book(s) are you reading this month?

 

--Persy

Persy -- The Passage by Justin Cronin

Are you ready for my round of excuses? Well, I was out of the country for almost a month, and then I got the chickenpox...

 

Science is cruising along, forever searching for the equivalent of the fountain of youth. Someone thinks they've found it... but is it what they think it is? Meanwhile, a young girl named Amy is abandoned to a group of nuns, and then kidnapped by the government. She becomes part of the experiments and while the world falls to ruins around her, she remains... Amy. And something a little bit more.

 

Almost a hundred years later, the story takes up with the small community of survivors who live inside a walled city with electric lights that will eventually shut off for good. And once that happens, no one will be able to stop the "smokes" from getting in and killing everyone.

 

The smokes are what happened when they tried spreading their fountain of youth. They got youth all right, but also a lot more. Superhuman abilities and a dose of insanity, and insatiable thirst and hunger for blood...

 

The little community's fragile peace is disturbed when Peter Jaxon runs into a Walker outside of the wall, a young girl who cannot speak with her mouth but somehow communicates exactly what she needs to say. No one knows where she came from, but it doesn't take Michael long to find the chip in her neck, put their years ago by the military. And it doesn't take him much longer to find a signal being sent out for her, asking for her return.

 

As the little community crumbles and the infected breach the walls, Peter leaves with a small crew to find the source of the signal, and, just maybe, other survivors.

 

This book took me over four months to read. That is a freaking long time. Geez. Admittedly, part of the problem was just crazy life stuff, but still. I mean, thinking about all the other things that have happened in the last four months, it's ridiculous to think that I've been reading the same book the whole freaking time.

 

Anyway. All that said, it makes it rather remarkable that I didn't just give up on the stupid thing. For some reason, I just kept on reading, kept re-checking it out at the library.

 

The beginning really drew me in, but the sudden drastic setting change really disoriented me, and for a long time I was really irritated about it. It took me a very long time to warm up to the new characters in the new setting. And once I had started to like them, Justin Cronin goes off and kills one of them and then has the other go through such a drastic character growth that he's not even the same character anymore. I'm still a little pissed off about that.

 

Two of the characters, Peter and Sara, really do have nice character growth. Peter was just "meh" in the beginning, but by the end he was awesome. Sara was "meeeeeeeh" and then she was "DON'T DIE, SARA." Theo and Maus, however, are just dull the whole way through.

 

The ending, OH THE ENDING. It was so sharp, so sudden, so unexpected, so... AAAUGH. It's amazing. I had to reread it five times to make sure I'd understood it correctly. Geez. Man. Wow. Golly what an ending. Major points for that one.

 

Justin Cronin has a very insensitive writing style. It's rather dry and there's not a whole lot of emotion in his characters (other than the occasional maniacal rage). It's not like I want an epic love story or anything, but something might be nice. Instead, you've got nothing. And then when he does put a bit of emotion in, it feels weird and...alien. Maybe he was just trying to sum up the world he created, but I don't really like it.

 

All in all it's... weird. The story and characters and writing is all just... weird. And long. Man. I would honestly only recommend this book to people who specifically like ridiculously long books. I don't think anyone else could get through it.

 

I also discovered that there's a sequel, and I'm not sure if I want to put my time and strength into that...

 

--Persy

 

You might like this if you: love ridiculously long novels; like horror vampire stories; like apocalyptic stories; don't much care about emotion (except for maniacal rage); or if you're dreaming about a mean fat woman and have an imaginary friend named Babcock.