You know how people are always asking you which famous person you'd like to invite to your fantasy dinner party? I think I'd like to invite Dan Brown.You know how people are always asking you which famous person you'd like to invite to your fantasy dinner party? I think I'd like to invite Dan Brown.
You know how, in the first season of American Horror Story, Constance makes those cupcakes with the spit and poison in them for Violet, and brings Vivian uncooked pig pancreas under the pretence that it'll help keep her unborn babies healthy?
Do you see where I'm going with this?
Okay, okay. Maybe that was faintly harsh. Sorry, Dan Brown. Just refund my time and I'll be on my way. Oh - oh, you can't? Well, then, that changes things, doesn't it? Because here I am, cracking open a book that I've been told is eye-opening and thought-provoking when in fact it's like peeling open a date and finding fly eggs inside it. Not only does it turn your stomach, because it's motherfucking disgusting (and so is the capitalist fakery that saw this book flying off the shelves by the truckload) but it makes you feel cheated, too. It does, doesn't it? You were ready for a good date, or for a good book, and you got insect carcasses. Or, more appropriately, you got a convoluted waste of paper that a chimpanzee could have written if it had sat down on a typewriter.
Never again, Dan Brown. You hear me? Keep your books - your fucking rehashed, recycled, pointless, soulless, money-grubbing piles of pure fail - the hell away from me.
Oh, and to anyone late to the party who's thinking of giving this a shot? Don't say that like 4633546573847934758 people didn't warn you.
I read this book on an 8-hour flight from London to Toronto. This book and I spent 8 hours together, in coach seating, with nothing to do but surrendeI read this book on an 8-hour flight from London to Toronto. This book and I spent 8 hours together, in coach seating, with nothing to do but surrender to the impossibility of escape. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, and this book caught me. It caught me like Slenderman in a dark forest.
I will proceed to chronicle my transition from literature enthusiast to broken shell of a woman below.
Beautiful Disaster: A hallmark of passive aggressive literature that is secretly at home in the apocalyptic genre
Take off: My spirits are high. The first page is fine. Laughing at the ridiculous character names, but reminding self that neither "America" or "Shepley" is as bad as "Eureka Boudreaux".
Hour one: Surprised by route taken by book. There appears not to be instalove, which really shouldn't be surprising, given the nature of the absolutely nauseating love interest.
Love triangle is dire, like watching three stray dogs attempt to hump each other at the park. And why is Travis even in this fraternity, since he's constantly beating up his frat brothers? No one called the cops on his ass? Also, aggressive misogyny abounds: every woman except Abby who shows interest in Travis is a bimbo or a slut. Of course, Travis engaging in promiscuous behaviour is fine because he's "troubled". (And a man!)
Hour two: I'm waning. Abby and Travis revolve around each other like the doors at M&S, meanwhile the entire college zeroes in on them as if they're the only thing keeping the moon in orbit.
"A really popular creep is in love with me," Abby says, in front of her adoring audience. "But we're just friends. Whatever. I don't let it go to my head."
Hour three: Cabin fever sets in. The book and I stare each other down, with the seatbelt sign looming over our heads as a hellish omen sent to warn us of the impending five hours of the journey, in which we will remain locked in a turbulence-fuelled death grip at 40,000 feet. Determined not to succumb, I throw the book under the seat and watch Oz, The Great and Powerful. Dreadful movie. I'm losing the will to live.
Book finds its way back into my hands. I open it and go hard at it, determined to finish it in the next three hours. I read another hundred or so pages filled with nothing but belly button fluff, and then the proverbial towel is thrown in again.
(Bonus points for Travis trashing the apartment like a fucking gorilla in heat after Abby leaves in the morning without saying goodbye. Bonus bonus points for having Abby apologize for his deplorable behaviour.)
Hour four: Abby and Travis break up because Travis wants to join the mob (???). I am losing touch with reality.
Hour five: Hilarity ensues when one realises that Abby and Travis have broken up but Travis is stuck with "Pigeon" tattooed on his wrist.
Hour six: The plane has entered Canada and the end of the longest flight in history appears to be in sight. However, the ordeal continues. I have seen the face of evil.
Hour seven: Subplots appear and disappear like planes over the Bermuda Triangle. My resolve is waning. There are tears in my eyes.
Hour eight: Travis and Abby are married (!!!) in Vegas (!!!) at nineteen years old (!!!) which I suppose is meant to be a happy ending. But there is only cheese, cheese everywhere. I am drowning in it, but when the pilot announces that landing will commence in fifteen minutes, I see a light at the end of the tunnel. My limp, defeated, nearly gangrenous body begins to come alive. It is almost over.
Landing: A tsunami of relief washes over me. I arrive home, go to bed, and do not awaken for eleven hours.
In conclusion: this book is not beautiful. This book is just a disaster.
This book is like those little sachets of Nutella you get as free samples with like a magazine or a packet of Ritz or something, in that it's empty caThis book is like those little sachets of Nutella you get as free samples with like a magazine or a packet of Ritz or something, in that it's empty calories lite but seriously delicious. It's really small and really bad for you and not really that satisfying but shit if you don't enjoy it. Because, no matter how superior you think your tastes are, you will enjoy this. Even just on a voyeuristic level. You just have to forget all of the stuff you know. Like, all of it. Forget what you learned in civics class and don't you dare remember even one page of that history textbook that your teacher shoved under your nose when you were eleven. Don't untangle those headphones; don't try to line up the yellow smarties. This book is a house of cards. Really cool to look at, but totally flimsy.
(And the controversy is such a shame. It's a shame that the creative minds behind this lovably fluffy duck-down are the sort to hurl expletives at honest, non-inflammatory reviewers via Twitter, which is literally the weakest way to attack someone, because were your reasons so flimsy that they wouldn't fill out more than 140 characters? Come on.)
Personal shitstorms aside, this book has about as much class and substance as its creators, but that's isn't to say that it didn't nicely pad out a two-hour train journey from Dundee to Glasgow. That commute, especially on a Friday lunchtime, is a snore. Add that to a tiny waif of a story with all of the addictive allure of crack and you've got two covers that you can turn in one single sitting.
I'm not going to lie to you and say that I didn't have preconceived notions about this one; I mean, come on. The social drama was embarrassing. Add that to a name like "America Singer" and you've got a character I'm expecting to hate. But the thing was that I totally didn't.
I have a bit of a problem with those who expect teen girls in YA books to behave like street-smart successful thirty-year-olds with enough life experience to be able to judge any situation with a clinical and businesslike edge. I know I wasn't like that when I was sixteen, and neither were you. When I was sixteen I fell in love with a supply teacher and thought that having chipped nail polish made me look edgy.
America is kind of like me. She's probably kind of like you, too. She's over-dramatic and foolishly optimistic and she gets swept up by a single kind action from a cute boy. So what? She's a teenage girl. She's also careful, restrained and compassionate. She doesn't swallow bullshit like it's Orange Julius. She's believable. I'm not usually a huge fan of the whole "I'm special because I'm plain" which this whole book does use as a giant smoke screen for its sexism: there's the inevitable conversation in which someone says that big groups of girls always means there's snarky bitching and tons of competition, which doesn't hang together at all if you look at what is perpetuating this competition. Cass gives us commentary on girls and their competitiveness without actually tackling the reasoning behind that, which is of course a society whose foundations rely on a lack of camaraderie between women and this idea that in terms of relationships, men come first.
Who is funding, perpetuating, and benefitting from the Selection? Maxon, who will gain a wife, and the king, who will solidify his dynasty. The queen is merely there for decoration; she says and does nothing of import. This book, had it not been the Nutella free sample of dystopia in which there's no greater peril than running out of bow tie pasta and having to resort to lasagne sheets, could have been a fantastic allegory for the way in which women compete and are punished for it, when in fact it is men and male benefactors specifically who both incite and perpetuate said competition. We are supposed to hate Celeste because she's our stereotypical heartless mean girl - and YA caters only to the insecurities of those who are visually plain, placing girls who wear lipstick into a terribly unflattering light and only exacerbating "types of girls" - when in fact Celeste and her desperation to climb the social ladder is a blinding example of what this patriarchal power imbalance between men and women has created in Cass's world. That is, the idea that male acceptance and male pleasure has infinitely greater value than that of women. This idea that men and romance comes first, and female friendships threaten that, and get her! Tackle her! Don't let that *hussy* steal your man! He's all that gives you value, remember?
Calling out "all my friends are guys, there's less drama because girls are bitches" gives me immense satisfaction. When I hear that self-important special snowflake shit it makes me want to hurl. Is that any way to speak about your fellow woman? Do you understand the waves that women can make when they work together?
This book is nowhere near as bad in this area as it could have been - but we weren't spared disapproving glances at Bariel's breasts or the constant commentary on Celeste and her ridiculously exaggerated competitive antics. Do me a favour and spare me another wasted concept, because there's no peril to this, and because there's no peril, the story has no weight. None of these girls are being forced to do this. There's monetary gain involved but America's family are not exactly begging for scraps, are they? Why on earth we're watching a middle-class girl agonize so deeply over a silly competition that she chose to enter is beyond me. What's further beyond me is the whole caste system, and why it's even in place, and why this book is a dystopia. This could have been a four-star read for me had it been set in a high fantasy world, maybe in a kingdom called Candy Land where everything was frivolous and silly with an undercurrent of darkness and social instability.
But let's look at the technicalities of this. We have a competition with no negative outcomes that everyone adores except the faceless "rebels" who lack any real presence and who are portrayed as nasty barbarians when in fact what they're rebelling against is fat cats sitting in a palace eating fruitcake while children in the lower castes starve. The prince for whom they're competing is hot and charming and sweet. Goddamn, nothing about this is dystopian. You might look at the poverty pointedly but is the poverty ever explored in any meaningful way? Is there ever any real commentary attached to it? No.
Jesus, just add some fucking peril to your dystopia. "But it's light and fluffy! It's not meant to be serious!" you say. Newsflash: dystopia is a really goddamn serious genre. Dystopia is a genre that is built around social commentary. Don't you dare come in and fluff up a genre that was created as a platform for authors to offer creative, intelligent critique and discourse on some of the most controversial and powerful social issues in the real world. Dystopia is a gift; dystopian stories can make us better people. This is not a dystopia. It is just silly.
Honestly? This book could have been so much more. It could have been powerful and groundbreaking. It's not like the writing was anything special (in some places, it's just plain bad. This book is filled with some of the most unnatural and stilted dialogue I have ever read) or that any of the characters, even those I liked (Maxon was an unexpected favourite of mine, even if he is a two-faced spineless dingbat), grabbed my attention enough to make me give a crap. It's just one big pile of wasted potential. And I am so suspicious of authors who say that they "write without agenda" because one cannot claim to do impossible things. Every single piece of writing in existence has agenda, big or small, powerful or menial. Don't say that you just wanted to write a little light-hearted dystopia that nobody should take too much to heart. Don't. Don't do that. Don't do what Lauren DeStefano did when she wrote about rape and polygamy and forced marriage and sex with thirteen year olds and then claimed that there was no social commentary behind it, and that she wasn't trying to say anything with her writing. The fuck?
Don't fuck with really serious issues and then try to wriggle out of readers' concern or curiosity by claiming that you "didn't mean anything by it". That's lazy and also sort of insulting.
All of that said, don't be too surprised by my three-star rating. I'm sorry, but I couldn't award less to a book that engrossed me so, and that was such guilty fun. I was absolutely hypnotized....more
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