(This review was originally written and published in July of 2012.)

I try to go into each book I read without knowing anything about it.  I usually break down about halfway through and check online to see if anyone else has the same problems as me.  But with this book, there was no helping it.  I already knew about Kiera Cass’s internet implosion over a (very mild) bad review for her book.  I almost hope she finds out about this.  Not because I think I could put her in her place (I can’t), but because it just tickles me to watch adults throw hissy fits.  And so, through following that story, I heard it was “a cross between The Bachelor and The Hunger Games.”  Two things I severely dislike.  (Yeah, I said it.  I dislike THG.  Farla will tell you why.)  So, with that knowledge admittedly coloring my opinion, let’s dive right into this mess.

So, in the opening paragraph, the main character gets a letter in the mail.  Her mother is super happy, but she is not, because she doesn’t want to be royalty.  I don’t blame her.  Being royal looks like it sucks. 

She had already decided that all our problems were solved, gone forever.

…

I hid in my room, the only place to avoid the chattering of our full house

This is supposed to be dystopian, right?  Because, for the record, if you have your own bedroom in a family of five, you’re richer than (insert made up statistic here.)  Okay, I don’t know the real number, but it’s most of the world.  And that’s right now, in our non-dystopian present. 

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.  We don’t know what place she holds in the socioeconomic structure.  Maybe she’s upper-middle-class.  Hell, we don’t even know her name yet, except for the fact it was mentioned on the cover.  So I’ll go ahead and start calling her America. 

(It strikes me that she is very…American.  Whining about having her own room just because the rest of the house is full, about having a job just because her boss is rude, so she’s going to go pout.  Only, it doesn’t really strike me so much as it slaps me in the face.  I hope we’re not supposed to find this clever.)

America doesn’t want to fill out this Selection application, because…rebels?  She goes on to muse about how there’s rebels in the country and they’re blowing up a few things.  She then fails to connect that fact to anything that’s going on presently in the story.  She doesn’t want this Selection, and also there’s rebels.  She says the Selection would be dangerous, but she doesn’t say that the rebels are attacking whatever this Selection is, she says they are attacking other things.

There was even a magnificent jailbreak once, but considering they only released a teenage girl who’d managed to get herself pregnant and a Seven who was a father to nine, I couldn’t help thinking they were in the right that time.

Well, if that father of nine was in jail because he killed kid #10, and if that pregnant teen was in jail because she dumped chlorine in the drinking water, I’d think they were wrong.  Seriously, having kids does not make someone a perfect saint.  You can’t tell me the rebels were right for freeing those two if you don’t first tell me those two were innocent of whatever charges.  Unless getting pregnant and having nine kids are both considered crimes in this world?  Well, if so, it would be nice to know that.

Then she thinks that they need the money.

It wasn’t that our situation was so precarious that we were living in fear of survival or anything. We weren’t destitute. But I guess we weren’t that far off either.

You have your own room in a five-person family, and you, personally, have turned down paying jobs because you didn’t like the boss.  By our own, modern standards, you are nowhere near ‘destitute.’

Okay, I usually like it when a book jumps right into the story and we get to hear about the world a little bit at a time.  But there is no story so far.  She gets a letter with an application in it, and she thinks a lot about it.  That’s not a story.  And explaining the world isn’t being withheld in favor of something more interesting, it’s just being withheld.  We don’t know why some people are referred to by numbers, we don’t know what counts as ‘destitute’ (will they make her *gasp* share a bedroom?), and we don’t even know what this damn Selection is.  (You know, unless you read the back cover.)

Our caste was just three away from the very bottom. We were artists.

What the fuck am I even looking at?  Is there a caste just for artistic jobs?  Is America an artist?  She’s a kid.  Is she in a low caste because artists in this world don’t make much money?  Really, is this job-based or power-based?  Tell me!

Our money was stretched as tight as a high wire

You have your own bedroom!

Then America goes on to talk about holidays.  Apparently Thanksgiving has been moved to summer, because fuck history.  Although, if this is still a non-agrarian intensive society, I guess it doesn’t matter as much what season it’s held in.

So, at holiday times, the whole family works.  Dad and sister May are crafty artists, and they sell stuff.  Mom and America are musical artists, and they sing and perform.  But they can’t get work at any other time because…?  No, really.  I know holidays are big selling seasons, but that’s not the only time that people buy art or listen to music.  They should be busy at holidays, not only working at holidays.

That’s what we were in the eyes of our employers: meant to be heard and not seen.

Yeah.  Because you’re an employee hired to sing at a party.  You’re not Sting.  (Or, I don’t know, Taylor Whoserhead.)  You’re not in a concert.  You were hired to perform background music.

Oh, god, is the emo in this book going to be “woe is me, I’m not getting enough attention”?

Gerad hadn’t found his talent yet. But he was only seven. He still had a little time.

This is going to be a job-based caste, isn’t it?

Damnit, book, do you not realize how valuable art is?  Ironic, considering the author is now rich off her creative…talent.  Look, I know most artists are the starving type, but that’s because it’s an industry with a really low entry threshold.  Anyone, anywhere, can pick up a pencil or a kazoo and call themselves an artist.  The reason most of them are starving is because most of them suck.  Of the ones that don’t suck, there’s maybe one decent paying job for every five people talented enough to fill it.  And then there’s the break-away successes, the people who make millions.

But here’s the thing.  There are people who make millions.  Because art is valuable.  There’s a reason we have been painting on caves since the dawn of time.  Art fills one of the most basic human needs.  It provides beauty and connection and a way to immortalize and categorize our lives.  And, yes, it entertains.  We need entertainment in our lives in order to not go crazy.   There have been regimes that try to stamp out art, and do you know what happens?  People keep making art anyway.  They risk their lives to make art.  Because art is fundamental to the human condition.  It is not ‘three steps above dirt.’  Sucky art is three steps above dirt, but art as a concept is not.

The only possible explanation for this is that they have an entire caste for artists, so there’s people born into it that suck at art, so no one wants to buy their sucky art.  All the good artists are stuck in another job caste. 

America whines some more about how she’s an artist, so she can’t find work until a holiday, because apparently this whole world is made out of robots who don’t like music.  Or possibly because she’s a sucky singer and there’s a whole caste of good singers that are getting hired ahead of her.

America’s mother is fat, despite the fact that America tells us they have no extra food and sometimes even go hungry.  (But she has her own bedroom.  No, I’m going to keep harping on that.  It’s worth harping on.)  America’s ‘plump’ mother is also the only bad character so far, and the book spends a whole paragraph on her weight, so yay.  Appearance is being equated to goodness again. 

Also, there’s a couple of reasons her mother could be plump even on a tight diet.  Cheap food is often crappy food, she’s had five kids, and she’s old enough that her hormones could have settled into ‘let’s spread outward’ mode.  It is hard to eat right when all you can afford is highly-processed junk that’s stuffed full of corn syrup and has little-to-no nutrition.  (Which is why you shouldn’t deride people who are overweight and living on welfare.  Healthy food is, perversely, very expensive.) 

On the other hand, how do I know if they’re eating junk food?  I have no idea what this society is like!  Apparently they’re nearly destitute in a house where America has her own bedroom.  For all I know, middle class is the new poor.

Okay, finally, some story!  Of a sort.  Well, it’s people talking and things happening, instead of America musing and yet still not telling us anything.  It’s dinner time, and the rest of the family has come home, so Mom pulls out the letter and starts reading it aloud.

We’re told that any time the royal family has a daughter, they are “sold off into marriage in an attempt to solidify our young relations with other countries.”  Sons marry a girl from their own country in order to ‘keep up the morale.’  This book apparently fails to note two things:

Arranged marriages are not automatically ‘sales.’  Really, I’m sick of seeing this, but arranged marriages are not evil.  Especially if a girl is raised to it and expects it.  Also, those ‘relations with other countries’?  Sounds pretty important.   Now, there are a lot of things that can make arranged marriages a bad thing, especially if they slide over into forced marriages, where the bride has no say in her future.  They can be bad if, after the marriage, the bride has no control over her life.  But that’s more to do with a culture’s views on marriage in general, not on arrangements. 

Second, the prince gets arranged marriages, too.  No, really.  He gets to pick, yes, but from only 35 girls that are selected for him by a random lottery.  What if he falls in love with a foreigner?  What if he wants a girl that wasn’t lotto-picked?  What if, wrap your brain around this concept for a moment, it was possible to not like 35 people, and all 35 of those people were up for your Selection?  What if the prince is gay?

(Also, the husbands of those princesses that are ‘sold’?  Probably not getting any choice in the matter.  And also also, did the whole world revert to monarchies again, or are we selling our princesses to sons of presidents or something?  Oil tycoons?  CEOs?  Prime ministers?  Ambassadors?  Who is ‘buying’ these princesses?)

So, that’s the deal.  America has a chance to put her name in the lotto drawing and maybe get picked to be one of the 35 girls.  The families of all picked girls get money, even if their girl doesn’t go on to be the bride.

Basically, there is no downside to filling out this application.  Either she gets picked and they get money, or she doesn’t and nothing changes.  We don’t know yet what happens to girls that compete but aren’t married to the prince.  Do they just go home at the end?  Sweet.  Show up, get disqualified in the first round, and go home with your money.  How hard can it be?  Just make out with one of the hired help or demonstrate a complete inability to be civil to visiting dignitaries.  Not that hard.

(For the record, that’s always been my plan for when I finally get picked for Survivor.  Show up, have fun, then get voted off once all the infighting starts.  Hang out in a resort hotel until the end of filming and go home with a great vacation story.)

Now, if these un-picked girls get sidelined into, say, a different caste/job after the end of the Selection, or if something bad happens to them, then there’s some legit hesitation over filling out the form.  But so far, all we’ve got is America going as if just filling out the form means she’ll be married off.

By the way, she made fun of her mom just a few pages earlier for the exact same assumption.

Also, this whole Selection process is televised, because fuck logic.

No, really, fuck logic.

Why is it televised?  The point of the princes marrying a citizen is for moral.  The point of reality television in its current incarnation is to watch people act like jerks.  If this is going to be televised, it should be no more than, like, a beauty pageant.  Introduce the contestants, let them put their best foot forward, and then have the actual choosing be done in private.  If every single part of this contest is going to be on television, then the country is going to see the worst parts of these girls, because no one can be on their best behavior 24/7.  Plus, I would not have high moral if I knew everything about the daily life of my future ruler.  I don’t want to know what Obama does with  his dirty underwear.

for the whole country to watch as this stuck-up little wimp picked the most gorgeous and shallow one of the bunch to be the silent, pretty face that stood beside him on TV … it was enough to make me scream. Could anything be more humiliating?

Yup, we’re in Fictionland.  That magical place where the world works on bad fiction tropes and not logic.

Why would you pick your future queen according to looks and shallowness?  I mean, I know that happens and that it’s a staple of shows like The Bachelor, but…that’s for Joe Shmoe.  Little Miss Queen needs more going on than just pretty.  She’s going to be a fucking queen.  She should be picked on her ability to (at a minimum, assuming these are figurehead royals) be non-scandal-causing in front of cameras and deliver a good speech and make nice with visiting dignitaries.  If these are actual ruling royals, then she needs to be picked based on her ability at statecraft.

Royals are no celebrities.  They have actual stuff to do.  Even the ones in a constitutional monarchy have important stuff to do.  They aren’t just there to look pretty in the crown jewels.  If all you want is for your character to look pretty in jewels, don’t make them royals.

Except for the times when we were hungry, I was quite content to be a Five. Mom was the caste climber, not me.

Um, you said earlier that you were constantly flirting with being destitute.  There is a difference between wanting security for your family and wanting social status.

Yeah, her mom’s going to be the evil parent, isn’t she?  There’s always an evil parent, and it’s always the mom.  Damnit, book.

It was more than her face, though, more than her winning smile and bright eyes. May radiated an energy, an enthusiasm that made you want to be wherever she was. May was magnetic, and I, honestly, wasn’t.

Thank you for pointing that out, book.  Beauty has a lot to do with someone’s presence and personality, not just their physical appearance.  However, I’m betting that America is going to be inexplicably magnetic anyway, and this quote will be dropped to the wayside.  (I swear, I think people have this idea that if they throw in one or two such lines, they meet some quota for ‘good morals’ and then they can do the exact opposite for the rest of the novel.)

Blah, blah, blah, more talk about how America Really Is Pretty, No Really.

Blah, blah, blah, more talk from America about how since she thinks she can’t win, there’s no point in entering at all. 

Looks like Dad is the sainted parent, again, because he’s totally cool with letting America not enter.  Well, you know what?  Fuck that.  She’s 16 and this family is three steps up from dirt.  They need the money.  If she doesn’t want to be queen, she doesn’t have to be, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone to compete, and it would help out a lot.  She’s being a melodramatic teenager and thinking she’s the center of the universe and that if anything in her life changes, the world is over.  There’s a reason we don’t let 16 year olds live alone yet.  They’re stupid.  I’m on Mom’s side.  Go, compete, and sabotage yourself in the semifinals. 

And with that I moved to the kitchen to start cleaning. I wrapped my mostly untouched plate under a napkin and hid it in the fridge. No one else left more than crumbs.

You’ve said several times now that your family is poor and sometimes goes hungry.  Why aren’t you eating all your food? 

I want to complain about this, but I really have no idea which way to complain.  She keeps saying they’re in it in a bad way, but everything she does screams “middle class teenager.”  I don’t know if I should yell at her for acting middle class when she shouldn’t be able to afford it, or if I should yell at her for talking about her middle-class-itude like it’s poverty.

I lay on my lumpy mattress, trying to wrap my head around the Selection. I guess it had its advantages. It would be nice to eat well for a while at least. But there was no reason to bother. I wasn’t going to fall in love with Prince Maxon.

Money.  Money is the reason to bother.  If you don’t want to be queen, then the point of being Selected is not to win.  You don’t have to be in it to win it when there’s participation prizes to be had.

She goes to bed and waits until midnight.  Then she pretties up, gathers up some leftovers, and sneaks out of the house.

She has a lawn and a treehouse.  Not only is this girl middle class, but she’s suburbia middle class.

Up in the treehouse, she meets with her boyfriend, but then the chapter ends.

Alright, guys, I know there’s a lot I left out.  The caste system, the fact that we have royalty somehow…  I don’t want to tear into all the reasons why it makes no sense until I learn a bit more about it.  It looks pretty failtastic from here, but I just don’t know enough to properly go “This is why you are wrong.”  Hell, I can’t even what their financial situation actually is, so it’s making ripping on this thing pretty hard.  Of course, that in itself is a problem.  I really should not be this confused on whether or not the Singer family is poor or middle class.