So freaking good!! I'm glad America finally got her crap together and Aspen wasn't just left hanging. The wrap up was phenomenal. Team Maxon forever!!!!

I loved this ending!! Maxon and America really grew during the series, and I loved the development that Kriss's and Celeste had as well. I wish we'd gotten more from Elise, though.

I also did feel like the ending was a little rushed... Aspen seemed to get over America so quickly and I think it was kind of a cheap way out to kill the king.

BUT MAXON. TELLING HER HIS HEART WAS ONLY HERS TO BREAK. I ALMOST DIED ON THE SPOT 😍😍😍

This book was so good. Very engaging and kept my attention. It also has some twists that personally shocked me so much. 

If you choose to read this series (which I highly do not recommend) I can only hope you go into it knowing the absolute tragedy of writing that it is. Hence, this review.

This series follows our protagonist, America Singer, as she gets selected for a Bachelor-esque competition to win Prince Maxon's heart in the dystopian world of Illea. To complicate matters, she is still in love with her ex, Aspen, who dumped her over his misogynistic ideas of love and providing, and (of course) she's poor.

Firstly, America herself: This girl's name is AMERICA, no really, like the country, SINGER. And guess what her job is. That's right, singing. Throughout the entire series, America is trying to be the not-like-other-girls 'quirky' option for the prince, who of course doesn't like him at the start, wants to be friends, and then falls deeply and obviously in love with him, confused about every one of these feelings all the way. She spends two-thirds of the series confused and needing "time", and the other third expressing every feeling and deep dark secret she has to whoever will listen.

Not to mention all that time she spends sneaking around with Aspen in the castle

Everything about this character, from her lack of emotional intelligence and communication abilities to her descriptions of eating a strawberry tart as having "every millimetre of [her] mouth ... engaged" annoyed me to the point I wanted to throw this book against the wall purely because of her.

Stupid character names and one-dimensional characters: Yes I know it's been said before, but who names their child, never mind their character 'Tiny', 'Marlee' or 'Aspen'?? I'm aware it's a dystopia and strange character names come with the territory, but seriously, there's a limit, and I think 'Kotor' crosses it a tad too far. Besides the atrocious names, the characters themselves have zero development or dimension. You have the standard Mean Girl, the Quirky Protagonist, the Devoted Best Friend, and the Always Willing to Serve Maids. And this almost never changes.

Besides Celeste, although I think we can all agree one bout of tears and a confession does not a transformation make. That whole situation completely lacked depth and it just felt jarring to suddenly be shown the Nice Girl instead

And to be honest, Maxon is the least endearing or sexy love interest I've ever seen written on a page. What's with him calling all the girls "my dear"? It's just gross! He could have at least bothered to learn the names and faces of the Selected BEFORE they arrived at the palace, and could have learnt a bit more about what is actually going on in the country, especially with the starving and homeless lower Castes. But instead, he remains an oblivious prince who is just here to have girls fall hopelessly in love with him. He's as dumb as a brick and even less sexy. With three books, I would have thought there was some opportunity for character development at least among America and Maxon, but no, apparently we were too busy dealing with the meals and women's room time to get to that.

The plot, or lack thereof: The general plot outline of this series is obvious, America goes to the palace and tries to win Maxon's heart as the oh-so-loveable prince sorts through all the girls to try and pick a wife. However, Cass tries to include so many subplots and provides no explanation of them nor context as to how they fit into the wider storyline or world.

For example, King Clarkson suddenly declares that the "war in New Asia has gotten worse", and that he and Maxon must leave immediately to deal with it. At no point in the previous chapters did Cass introduce any kind of war to GET worse in the first place, the whole thing was just sprung on us when it was a convenient excuse for Maxon to spend some time away and get some gifts. It would have been fairly simple to introduce this into the worldbuilding or history lessons earlier in the text.

The entire book feels underdeveloped and chaotic, as if Cass wrote a chapter at a time without prior planning or editing.

Misogyny: The series is FILLED TO THE BRIM with misogyny, yet it's never addressed and is even accepted. America is told that all girls are out to backstab each other, and just accepts this as fact and assumes she will be betrayed by the other Selected girls. America has 2 sisters who seem to have always been perfectly lovely and kind to her, yet she just follows the dreadful idea that all girls are horrible people. The Selected are treated as Maxon's property, who must not be with anyone other than Maxon, even though he can go around and do whatever he likes with the group of about 20 girls. They're all expected to spend extended amounts of time in the "Women's Room", reading magazines, drinking tea, and having mild and pleasant conversations with each other, waiting for Maxon to ask them on a date. This seems like an exceptionally misogynistic and boring way to pass the time, and instead of commenting on this, Cass just treats it as what's expected.

No chemistry between the love interests: To be honest, I've had more chemistry with my maths textbook than either of the main couples in this series have had with each other. Their conversations seem dry and their banter is non-existent. I found it really difficult to root for America and Maxon when I just felt there was NOTHING between them.

Worldbuilding: Cass' worldbuilding is HORRIFIC. We're told that it's a dystopia with Castes, and that the lower Castes (5-8) are poor and often go hungry. However, America (a Five) has her own room, a refrigerator AND a television, and gets popcorn to watch her movies with. This doesn't really paint the picture of the poor starving girl on the verge of homelessness. And it all could have been avoided with some simple explanation. There's also nothing about what kind of area America (or anyone for that matter) lives in: suburbs, rural areas, the middle of a remote forest, who knows?
As for the dystopian world itself, apparently China invaded America long ago after America couldn't pay China the money it owed. As if China was going to invade, sail on over, and just find a secret stockpile of gold bars hidden in the bottom of the White House that they were pretending didn't exist or something. And when China can't find their precious money, they rename the country the American States of China (eye roll, I know) and uses the American people as labour. But then, just to keep things interesting Russia gets involved, trying to fight a war on two fronts. (Which are never specified by the way, so we just have to assume Cass means America and China.) But as we've all learnt from the history classes Cass apparently never took, (seriously, maybe if she'd gone to a history class she'd know that the way she wrote this country's history is preposterous) you should never fight a war on two fronts. While Russia and China are fighting amongst themselves like a couple of spoiled two-year-olds, a wealthy old man decides to just declare himself the new ruler and rename the country AFTER HIMSELF.

As well as sell his daughter off to some other old man, which is absolutely horrendous and only mentioned once before it's brushed off and forgotten about by the way

Honestly, where was the USA's huge military budget and nuclear weapons stockpile when they needed it hey? They could have fended off China before this mess even took hold! There's so much to criticise about the history and worldbuilding of this series it deserves its own entire book.

Problematic ideas of love: Maxon declares that he wants a wife for ILLEA to love, and to be HIS companion and HIS confidante. At no point does anyone question whether he would like to become someone's confidante or someone's companion. Even putting aside all the public figure responsibilities of the princess role (obviously she has to be good for Illea and be decent at diplomacy), surely the Selected girls would like him to be their husband as well? Why does everything in the marriage have to be for him?

Dialogue: The dialogue in this series has to be some of the worst ever written. There is no tension at all, even when characters are arguing or keeping secrets.

Surely there should have been some kind of tension in the 'forbidden romance' of Aspen and America sneaking around the palace, but somehow even that felt stilted and boring

With three books in the series, surely there could have been some more tension between Maxon and America after a few of their many disagreements! Or when America makes Aspen dinner a the start of the series and Aspen immediately explodes with his chauvinistic truth instead of holding that anger and building resentment towards America for it, even just for a little while. America also always manages to blurt out the truth, for example when Maxon asks her whether she loves him on their literal second meeting and she tells him all about Aspen as the reason why she can't. She has no concept of a filter or what's personal and will tell her darkest secrets to pretty much anyone. This doesn't read as real-life characters or conversations, more people just designed to further a plot.

Overall, this series could have been a really well-written and developed commentary on misogyny and classism in a dystopian, Caste-based and monarchial society. With fleshed-out characters and a better plotline, Cass could have really had something. Unfortunately, her writing ensures none of that exists. I would say it's written for primary schoolers, but the sexual content erases that as a viable option. I still don't know how she managed to create 3 main books out of something that could have so easily been one 300-page novel. The only reason I would encourage you to read this is so you can laugh about it with your friends and know what not to do if you write yourself.

So far my favorite book in the series. I had forgotten what it was like to get so emotional over a book till this.

Love, love, love, this book. I'm rereading it as of May 2021. I definitely recommend the side stories book. 

Very happy America ended up with Maxon