Book Review: The Selection Trilogy

I read The Selection trilogy in two days. Yup, I spent the whole Sunday in bed. And I was reading as well on my way to and from the office on a Monday.

So The Selection is a young adult chick lit which is set years into the future. Nope, there's no space galactica thing but it's pretty much the same world we live in now with oppression and a caste system. Who would have thought these people would still have that old system in the future? Hmm.  The story is about a girl named America as she is selected to be one of the thirty five girls the prince gets to choose from to be his wife. (Come on, would you really go and be happy about that? Well, I think that if it did really happen, girls of today would be lining up in masses). Then there's a love triangle involved and lots of rebels.

Unlike similar books like The Hunger Games and Divergent, America Singer, the heroine, is described as beautiful, a fighter and you know, the type of girl who does not want what most girls want. And of course, there's Prince Maxon. Handsome, young, and for me, still needs a lot of growing up to do. But then again, what can we expect? These characters are in their teens.

I loved that the story was captivating and I could not put the book (ebook for this matter) down. I loved that the love triangle and the emotions of the characters got me confused as well (you'll understand if you read the book). And yes, some lines made me kilig and some felt like an axe was thrown on my chest.

I just didn't like the fact that the third book has the title The One. Of course, even if I'm still reading The Selection, I knew that America will end up with Maxon. Of course I wanted America to end up with Maxon (aren't we suckers for fairy tales?) but I feel there could have been a better ending. It just became easy towards the end.

And I don't know why it's the trend but so many books have a plot where there's a governing body and rebels or a certain group will do so much for change to usurp the government or whatever it is. Well, that's true, to instigate change something drastic must happen. But I've been noticing that this has been the theme of Hunger Games and Divergent. And I think The Maze Runner. But yes, people dig those stuff. And I guess that includes me.

If you're the type of person who likes to read chick lit, I suggest you read the book. It's a good weekend read.

The Prince and The Guard are also out so I'll post reviews after reading 'em.

And oh, if you want a copy of the ebook, let me know and I'll send you a copy. *wink*

P.S. So I finished The Prince and The Guard already but I don't feel like having a post dedicated entirely on those two books. So basically, these are the POVs of Maxon and Aspen which are very very short. I got a bit impatient when it came to the parts where the dialog is just the same as in the original trilogy. In my opinion, the trilogy could have survived even without the supplement books.

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Fifty Shades of Twilight

I am one of the first few people who loved Twilight even before it became the talk of the town. So it's a bit annoying that Fifty Shades of Grey sounds too much like Twilight.

In general, the girl, who tells the story, is plain and simple. She falls for handsome, rich, hot,and "dangerous" guy. Then perfect guy tries (and wants to) avoid girl but girl simply can't stay away. Well, they both can't.

Plus, here's the nitty gritty of the similarities:

The setting is in Seattle. Well, I'm not that familiar with US geography but both have a couple of scenes, if not several, scenes in Seattle. I think Forks and Portland are also near that area.

Bella and Ana are both clumsy, talk while they sleep, have fathers doing the serve and protect shiz, have mothers who need looking after, and both can work magic in the kitchen.

Edward and Christian are both adopted,they went through a rough time, have a very loving and supportive family, drive nice cars (a Volvo and an Audi) and makes their girl the reason they live (sappy but *kilig*).

Plus, the girls fell in love with the older boy easily and in a very short time, they got married at an early age. Bella just graduated from highschool while Ana was just out of college.

Overall, Fifty Shades was a pretty ok trilogy. I could have finished reading one book per day but I was a bit nauseated by the several (the word "several" does not even cover it) sex scenes the books have. In fact, in the middle of Fifty Shades Darker, I told myself that I will count how many times Ana and Christian did the deed on book three. I never got around to counting though since I kind of forgot about it. And the story line could have fit into one pretty long book instead of cutting it into three books.

Between the two, I like Twilight better even if it has several cheesy lines. Christian's lines were mostly connected with erotic scenes and I hate how EL James used the word "murmurs" ALL THE TIME.

Universal Pictures already bought the rights to make the film. I wonder how they will run the film for two hours and what its rating would be. But most of all, who will play the hot tycoon Christian Grey?

Note: I just found out that Fifty Shades started as a fan fiction of Twilight that's why there were several similarities.