Selection (novel)
Selection (English original title: The Selection ) is a youth novel by Kiera Cass and the first book of the Selection pentalogy. The book was first published in April 2012 by HarperTeen Verlag. The German translation by Angela Stein was published in February 2013.
Setting
In a dystopian, fairy-tale vision of the future after the fourth world war, society in the former America of Illéa is divided into castes. The highest caste, designated with the number one, is reserved for the royal family, the lowest caste for the unemployed, orphans and the disabled. The boxes determine the social status of the people and determine what work can be done.
The castes can rise or fall through marriage and royal orders. The caste order is primarily based on the male side; if girls find a husband who belongs to a higher caste, they automatically rise to the same caste through marriage; if the husband is of a lower caste, the bride descends. It is therefore a goal of many families of lower castes to marry their daughters as cheaply as possible to men from higher castes in order to enable them to have a better life. Because even if it is not fixed, the prosperity of the individual is definitely based on the caste, which is also due to the fact that the profitable professions are reserved only for members of higher castes. An exception to this unofficial regulation is only available for successful members of the lower castes who can buy belonging to a higher caste.
The boxes
- One - royal family
- Two - celebrities: models, actresses, athletes and military personnel
- Three - academics: inventors, teachers, philosophers, scientists, dental, veterinary and ordinary doctors, architects, librarians, engineers, therapists / psychologists, directors, music producers, lawyers, writers
- Four - business people: including jewelers, real estate and insurance brokers, chefs, site managers, farmers, factory workers
- Five - artists: including stage actors, singers, classical musicians, dancers, painters, photographers, circus performers
- Six - workers, including secretaries, waiters, housekeepers, seamstresses, shop assistants, cooks, drivers, servants in the royal family
- Seven - craftsmen: gardeners, construction workers, farm workers, gutter and pool cleaners
- Eight - unemployed: orphans, disabled and sick, rebels, homeless
Action part 1
America Singer, a fifth-caste violin player and singer, lives in Illéa with her parents and younger siblings. Even if their families are not rich, they can still survive quite well. The family's financial position is sufficient to support a neighboring sixth caste family. America has a secret love affair with the son of this family. Even if America would like to marry Aspen, Aspen hesitates for fear of giving America a worse life than she has so far. Marriage would mean downgrading America to sixth caste.
When the Prince of Illéa, Maxon Schreave, turns nineteen, the traditional selection begins . This describes a selection process for the future bride and later also the queen. Regardless of the caste membership, every girl between sixteen and twenty can apply for a lottery pot, from which thirty-five girls are then drawn according to the principle of chance. The chosen girls now live together in the palace and compete for the hand of the prince and the crown.
After an argument between Aspen and America, Aspen ends the relationship because he feels unable to care for America due to his financial circumstances. Thereupon America gives in to the pressure of her family and she enrolls for the Selection. Her mother in particular supports this, as she sees good chances for her pretty daughter to win the prince's heart and thus raise the whole family to the first caste.
Once at the palace, America feels locked up and left alone. On the first evening she tries to get into the palace gardens in a panic, but the palace guards undercut that. As luck would have it, the prince overhears America and the palace guard talking and gives her permission to enter the gardens. He tries to comfort America and make her feel welcome at the palace. He calls her "my love" over and over again, a nickname that enrages America, which is still lagging behind Aspen. In tears, she does not treat the prince with the respect he deserves.
Visiting the garden gave America the opportunity to be the first to speak to the prince and to convince him of her stubbornness. So the prince decides the next morning, when he sends most of the girls back home before breakfast based on their first impressions, to keep America in the palace. America is the only five left in the palace.
Here America quickly makes friends (Marlee Tames), but also enemies (Celeste Newsome). Her unique personality is discovered by Prince Maxon, but she makes it clear that she has no interest in marriage. This affects Maxon very much, as America is the first applicant he kisses and the one he fell in love with. Even so, America wants to stay at the palace because Aspen is waiting for her at home and she feels unable to face him, and because her family will receive generous financial support from the palace while she is still in the race. Maxon and America enter into a deal: America is allowed to stay in the palace and in return advises him on the other applicants.
Over time, America and Maxon grow closer and become friends. Although America still loves Aspen, she realizes that she cannot be indifferent to the prince either. This one seems to be very different from what she imagined; he does not condemn them based on their origins, but rather admires them for their will to survive.
In addition to the developing romance, there is a second subplot. Again and again, rebels who rebel against the monarchical regime attack the palace.
Because of the repeated attacks by the rebels, some girls leave the palace in fear. As the competition grows, America notices that she is jealous of the other girls when they spend time with Maxon. In this conflict of feelings, Aspen reappears, who, after being drafted for military service, works as the new guard at the palace. Contrary to the prohibition on having other relationships besides the prince during the time in the palace, she meets again and again with Aspen. He has now risen to the second caste as palace guard, so that he now feels able to marry America and take care of her. The situation is not easy for America as her two great loves are secretly competing for her.
After another very aggressive rebel attack, Maxon decides to reduce the number of remaining girls to six. This opens the next phase of the competition in which only the so-called elite remain in the palace. America is among those six as Maxon hopes to win them over to him after all. He knows America arrived at the palace heartbroken and wants to give her time to recover. Even if he doesn't know that Aspen was America's lover before the Selection and that his chances of winning her have been drastically reduced, he decides to give the other girls a chance as well. Now that America is part of the elite and realizes that she has to fight for Maxon, she decides to end her romantic relationship with Aspen. However, Aspen is not so easily dismissed as he decides to fight for America.
review
Publishers Weekly gave the book a positive review and praised the character of America. The School Library Journal , MTV and Booklist also gave positive reviews, whereas Kirkus Reviews sharply criticized the novel. The AV Club gave a mostly positive review with the remark that it was a kind of "copy" of The Hunger Games , but at least entertaining, and the story reminds a little of the Bachelor .
Plot part 2-The elite
America did it: she is one of the six finalists in the princess casting of Illeá. It even looks like she's Prince Maxon's favorite. But just as she is about to decide for him and the difficult office of the princess, everything suddenly goes wrong. Maxon doesn't seem to be the man she thought he was and it is becoming more and more evident that America is far from ready for court life and its pitfalls. Who can she trust? What are the rebels looking for who keep invading the palace? And who does her heart belong to: Aspen or Maxon?
Plot part 3-The chosen one
35 perfect girls were there. Now the casting goes into the final round: four girls dream of the Illeá crown and a fairytale wedding. America is still Prince Maxon's favorite, but her childhood sweetheart Aspen is still courting her fiercely. She hesitates because she loves both of them. But now the decision has come: America has forgiven her heart, with all the consequences. Come what may ...
Review - Selection, The Chosen One
The news magazine Der Spiegel published an article called "Submission for Girls" after Kiera Kass Roman worked its way up to first place on the Spiegel bestseller list. In this, the authors criticized that the image of women presented by Kiera Cass was old-fashioned and that the dream world in the palace actually stood for an unjust, unequal and unfashionable society. The review concluded with taking the book as a guilty pleasure reading and enjoying the imaginative, sometimes lengthy descriptions of the clothes.
Plot part 4-The Crown Princess
This book is about Eadlyn Schreave, the eldest of the children of Maxon and America. She is supposed to take the throne, but not alone. Since she doesn't have that many contacts with boys, her parents persuade her to do a casting to make the people happy. It pulls 35 out of a large number of applicants. Unfortunately, Kile Woodwork (son of Marlee and Carter Woodwork) is also one of the candidates drawn. She has known him from a young age and doesn't particularly like him, but he does too. Since Eadlyn is a very cool person, she does not believe in love and tries to appear extremely closed to her male visit. Until Kile wins her attention on an arranged date and he kind of helps her get through it all. When she bonded with Kile, she noticed that some of the men were pretty nice. This is how she builds a closer bond with Henry Jaakoppi, who comes from Swendway. The only problem: Henry only speaks Finnish, which is why communication only works through his translator Erik. Everything is going well and little by little she sends the men home, who always politely thank them for their honesty and leave, until one day Eadlyn's brother just runs away with his beloved Camille and only leaves a letter in which it says that he will marry Camille becomes. Eadlyn collapses, she feels alone. Ahren was the only one she could trust completely, her best friend and yet her brother. Only in the evening does she find out that her mother had a heart attack and is in mortal danger. She runs as fast as she can to the hospital wing and only finds her father in tears. She has never seen him like this before and she realizes that her parents' wedding was not compulsion, but love. But the worst thing for her is that she wasn't particularly nice to her mother at the time of the casting. She doesn't know what to do without her mother or Ahren, even though she just hates him.
Plot part 5-The crown
Kiera Cass has taken us four times to the kingdom of Illeá in search of the one great love. Now it's time to say goodbye.
When the casting started, Eadlyn was determined not to fall in love and not let any of the applicants get close. But five of them secretly snuck into her heart: Henri, the charming heir to the throne, and his translator Erik. The attentive and considerate Hale. The confident and attractive Ean. And of course Kile, Eadlyn's favorite enemy from the sandpit times, who annoyingly lures her out of the reserve again and again.
By the end of the casting, Eadlyn will have lost her heart for all her resolutions.
Brief information about Kiera Cass
Kiera Cass was born in South Carolina, USA and now lives in Virginia with her husband and two children. The idea for the ›Selection‹ novels came to her when she was thinking about whether Cinderella really wanted to marry the prince - or whether a free evening and a beautiful dress wouldn't have been enough ...
With her ›Selection‹ novels, Kiera Cass has made it onto bestseller lists worldwide.
Film adaptation and TV series
In 2012, Cass announced that CW had acquired the film rights to the series to film the books as a television series. In the series, Aimee Teegarden would have played the role of America Singer and a pilot was made. However, the series did not receive a green light. A second pilot with Yael Grobglas in the lead role was presented to CW but was also rejected.
In April 2015, it was announced that Warner Bros. had acquired the film rights to the book. DiNovi Pictures' Denise Di Novi and Alison Greenspan will be producing the film alongside Pouya Shahbazian. Katie Lovejoy will write the script.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The caste system. In: Fandom. Fandom Literature Community, August 19, 2018, accessed on August 19, 2018 (German).
- ^ Children's Review: The Selection. Publishers Weekly, accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ 'The Selection' Is Another Jewel In Dystopia's Crown. MTV, accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ Review: The Selection. Booklist, accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ Review: The Selection. School Library Journal (BookVerdict), accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ Review: The Selection. Kirkus Reviews, accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ The Selection, a YA book and incipient CW series, looks for royal love in a post-WWIII world. AV Club, accessed May 16, 2013 .
- ^ A b Maren Keller, Sebastian Hammerehle: Submission for girls. In: Der Spiegel. Der Spiegel, accessed on August 20, 2018 (German).
- ↑ Lesley Goldberg: Upfronts 2012: CW Redeveloping 'Hunger Games'-Esque Pilot' The Selection '. In: The Hollywood Reporter. May 17, 2012, accessed November 11, 2012 .
- ↑ Pilot Update! (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 3, 2012 ; Retrieved November 11, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The Selection 'finds its new lead: Yael Grobglas replaces Aimee Teegarden as America Singer. (No longer available online.) Hypable, archived from the original on February 27, 2013 ; Retrieved February 24, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ The CW at TCA: Pedowitz Gives Updates on New, Returning Projects. The Futon Critic, accessed January 24, 2013 .
- ^ Nellie Andreeva: 'The Selection' Dead At The CW. Deadline Hollywood, May 9, 2013, accessed October 22, 2014 .
- ↑ Warner Bros Buys YA Title 'The Selection', Sets Black List Scribe Katie Lovejoy To Adapt. Deadline, accessed April 26, 2015 .
