DYSTOPIAN:
To her credit Mrs. Cass has crafted an interesting, if flawed, setting for The Selection series. The monarchy has a very tenuous leadership over a war-torn land ravaged by rebels. The first thing that really happens in The One is that the Northern Rebels (the less violent ones) ally with Maxon purely out of good faith that he’ll end the caste system because he seems like a good person. This is a dystopian, war-torn society and the leader of a large rebel group allies with a teenage prince who isn’t even king yet just because he seems chill. That’s it. “Oh, your dad sucks but maybe you will be cool, right?” Yep, that has never NOT worked for revolutionaries. Good plan, rebels, I’m sure that will work out for you.
Later– Maxon and America travel outside the palace to meet the Northern Rebels. I truly don’t really know why they don’t use the telephone because everyone does have telephones in this book. The most important part of this trip is that it’s revealed Maxon, the crown prince of a country, has NEVER left his house. With Aspen’s help, Maxon and America go to the nearby village that is described as shockingly similar to Skid Row. The only plot device-ish thing that happens on this trip is America gets shot (not fatally, unfortunately) in the arm and is a HUGE wimp about the whole thing. She whines for at least 20 pages.
The next important thing that happens is about 50 pages later when the Southern Rebels start murdering innocent people in each remaining girl in The Selection’s caste until one of them leaves the competition. The girls all refuse to do so even though innocent people are dying. That makes sense. They are 17 and Maxon is a super hot prince who can make them a queen.
What doesn’t make sense to me is that the ADULTS around here don’t say “Maybe we should call the dating competition off because y’know– war.” Later we find out the rebels has killed 300 people around the country because nobody dropped out of the Selection. 300 people! America says “Wow, that’s a lot!” and then Maxon and his father the king say “Meh,” and just wave their hands dismissively. America is just like “Oh yeah OK” because she is 17. To give you a sense of scale: 300 people is almost double the amount of people who died in the Oklahoma City Bombing which was perpetrated by terrorists, which, technically the rebels are terrorists.
After the rebels/terrorists kill 300 people because four teenage girls won’t drop out of The Bachelor you know what the palace decides to do? Have a tea party!!!!!!!! It’s like the French Revolution is playing out before our very eyes. At any moment America will say to post-apocalyptic Skid Row “Let them have cake!” and then, hopefully, the proletariat will haul them everyone off to the guillotine.
At the Tea Party, America asks the Princess of Italy (yeah) for money to arm the the Northern Rebels because America Singer is Ronald Reagan and this is the Iran-Contra affair. Seriously, she arms a rogue rebel group. Then later the King is like “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID WITH THE PRINCESS OF ITALY” and America is like “Oh yeah I forgot about arming the rebels.” How do you forget about that? Don’t worry though– the king doesn’t know about the contra he’s just mad America is friends with Italian people.
There is no villain in this book apart from the murderously vague “Southern Rebels” who are probably rioting in the streets because of the horrible conditions their government has left them in because the army is so ill-equipped. When Maxon sends six guards with America when her dad dies (of natural causes SNOOZE this is a DYSTOPIAN NOVEL WITH MURDEROUS BLOODTHIRSTY REBELS) it’s like a HUGE deal because the army is so understaffed. Six people! SIX!
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