Review of The Elite by Kiera Cass

Imagine being horribly poor and then waking up one day to find that you have a 1 in 6 chance of becoming a Princess, marrying a guy you really like, and never wanting for anything ever again.  Now you know the story of The Elite, the second book in the Selection series. The original book started off as a Bachelor style competition where 30 or so commoners competed to win the affections of their prince. The final round is the top 6, and they are called the Elite. In this book, we get a better look at the rebels and see Prince Maxon start to assert himself. You also get to see his very vulnerable side, and you really can’t help but warm up to him after learning what his life is really like.

• Title: The Elite
• Raina Rating: 9 out of 10
• Genre: Young Adult, Romance, Dystopian
• Author: Kiera Cass
• Series: Book 2 of 3 in the series

The Elite is a good book that was much better written than the original (The Selection).  You can tell the publisher definitely spent a lot of money on developmental edits on this one. I’m not knocking them – I get that’s the process. Just noting that this book was by far more polished than the original, and it shows. This book was a much better product than the original.  While I enjoyed them both in the end, I by far preferred The Elite and now just cringe at the thought of having to wait an entire year for the third book in the series.

In this book, we are down to the final 6. The problem is that Aspen, whom we met at the beginning of the first book, is back in her life because now he’s a guard at the palace. That, of course, is a huge problem because now she doesn’t know who to pick.

The one thing I didn’t like about this book is I felt like book one and book two (The Selection and The Elite) really should have just been one book. There wasn’t any MAJOR thing in either book that made them stand out and warrant two completely different books. Overall, it’s a great story, but does it need to be two different books? I don’t think so. But that’s just me.

Buy it. Like The original book in this series, this is a book that had that re-readability factor.