It has been said time and time again: to be a great writer, one must first be a great reader. If that’s the case each and every book we read should not only entertain but it should also be a learning experience. That said, what exactly could we learn from reading The Selection?
Well, one issue I had with The Selection was characterization. The Selection has a huge cast, with a whopping 55 named characters*. While it wasn’t hard to keep track of who was who, I kind of wondered what was the point of having all of these characters? Was it really necessary to include America’s aide who helped her to the airport for that one chapter? Were Aspen’s twin sisters even necessary? His little brother was just used as a tool to show how terrible Illea was and to explain why Aspen worked so hard.
Perhaps if some of these roles were eliminated and/or combined, there would be more time to develop some of the other girls in the selection or focus more on world building. I get that at its core this series is America and Maxon’s love story, however, I think it would have been a lot more interesting if we had a sense of competition. I’m not saying that I would have wanted each and every girl to be fleshed out, especially since they’re going to be written out anyway, but there are certainly ways to quickly inject personality and life into characters.
If you’re a writer who has a project with a huge cast of characters, I’d definitely recommend giving this a read. Just as I have certain things that I would change in this book, I’m sure you do as well.
*I tried to be as accurate as possible with all the named characters but I am worried I missed a few. Also, characters who had titles instead of names, like The Queen of Swendway, were included in my count.