Review: The Elite (The Selection # 2)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

     The Elite took me on an emotional rollercoaster and I have mixed feelings about it. While I did like this book, I didn't really like it quite as much as the previous one. The main reason was that I found America to be extremely annoying in this sequel. And the reason why she was so annoying was that she kept switching from loving Aspen to loving Maxon, and so on and so forth. 

     It was really frustrating that she was always jealous of the other girls and of Maxon getting closer to them while she kept pushing him away. As soon as Maxon seemed to get sick of her swinging moods, she went back to Aspen. I found it horrible that she always kept Aspen waiting and hoping for her just in case things didn't work out with Maxon. 

     The King was really frustrating throughout this whole book as well, but at least he kept things interesting, although everything was pretty much predictable. However, let's all take a moment and appreciate the King's presence, otherwise this book would've been completely pointless. I did, however, love the Queen. I liked her from the beginning to the end.

     So in The Elite, there's only 5 girls left in The Selection and the competition is tougher than ever. Prince Maxon seems to connect with the other girls more and more, America keeps losing attention due to her infuriating stupidity, and every girl begins to up their game in the struggle of obtaining the crown, the title and Maxon's heart. This book mainly focuses on the horrible love triangle that is Maxon-America-Aspen and I fail to see the dystopian setting, except for extremely minor parts where a little bit of conflict arises.

     After reading the first book and absolutely loving it, I was highly disappointed with The Elite. I was expecting more of the dystopian environment, more conflict but instead all I got was America's whole I-don't-know-who-to-chose drama. She kept saying nonsense about true love and whatnot, when in reality, she had no idea what love was. 

     Overall, I was not impressed with this book and I'm sad to say this, because after The Selection, which is now officially one of my favorite books, this was a major disappointment. I read it all because I don't like abandoning a series halfway in, unless that series is completely awful and horrible - and it's not the case with The Elite. I mean it was bad, but not that bad. Personally, I read this because I was curious as to where to story was headed and because I loved the first book. So I can only give it three stars and hope that the final book, The One will be more satisfying.