Saturday, July 11, 2015

Review: The Heir by Kiera Cass #yalit #TheSelection



Title: The Heir (The Selection #4)
Author:
Kiera Cass
Publisher: HarperTeen (HarperCollins)
Release Date: May 5, 2015
Acquired Via:
Personal Collection

Princess Eadlyn has grown up hearing endless stories about how her mother and father met. Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won the heart of Prince Maxon—and they lived happily ever after. Eadlyn has always found their fairy-tale story romantic, but she has no interest in trying to repeat it. If it were up to her, she'd put off marriage for as long as possible.

But a princess's life is never entirely her own, and Eadlyn can't escape her very own Selection—no matter how fervently she protests.

Eadlyn doesn't expect
her story to end in romance. But as the competition begins, one entry may just capture Eadlyn's heart, showing her all the possibilities that lie in front of her . . . and proving that finding her own happily ever after isn't as impossible as she's always thought.

My Review

Previously reviewed:
The Selection (The Selection #1)
The One (The Selection #3)


One of my far and away most anticipated reads of 2015 was Kiera Cass' The Heir, the follow-up to her hugely popular Selection series. I loved all of the previous books in the series so hard, and I am sad to say that I did not enjoy The Heir half so much.

I sometimes forget how important a main character is to the story. America Singer was a character that I loved for whatever reason, and I was obsessed with following her story. I adored Prince Maxon, and I loved to hate Aspen. America and Maxon's daughter was a different matter. I did not like Eadlyn Schreave. Yes, she is a realistic princess/heir, but she has almost no redeeming qualities. I did not enjoy her interactions with other characters, and I liked her even less as the story progressed. I couldn't even love to hate her, like Celeste Newsome in the previous books.

The characters from the previous three Selection books were the best part of the novel. I loved seeing America and Maxon, Aspen and Lucy, Marlee and Carter, etc. Of the new characters, Erik was the only remotely interesting one, and he is not even in the Selection process.

I also want to say that I really despise the character names - Ean, Kile, Ahren, Baden Trains, Issir Quiller, Arizona Packer, and so on. The spellings are weird and/or the combination of the first and last names just make my head hurt. There was a bit of this in the first books, but I don't have a distraction from the awful names with, say, a great character. I mean, Arizona Packer just made me think that Green Bay sold their football team to Arizona.

Another thing that I was missing in The Heir was a romance to root for, or as some say, a "ship" to sail on. Eadlyn had no chemistry with any of the guys - Kile moments seemed especially forced - and she just isn't good enough for Erik.

Since I've enjoyed Cass' writing so much in the past, I'm willing to give the next book in the series a chance. Her writing is the only draw - not even the cliffhanger pulls me. The Heir is easily the biggest disappointment this year.

- 2.5/5 Stars -

Pre-Order Links
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1 comment:

  1. Ooh I loved this book!!! great review! I am yet to actually get round to reviewing it yet though. May do it tomorrow :P

    ReplyDelete

You are going to put words in my box?! *squeezes you* Now I shall stalk YOUR blog!