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. (Goodreads)
Firstly, I just want to express how happy I am that there is a fourth book in the series when only three were originally planned! Now I have to wait for the next instalment – which feels like a lifetime!
I am not going to lie – going into this book, I was worried the Eadlyn was going to be America reincarnate and we were going to watch the same selection pan out all over again, just from the royal perspective rather from the selected themselves. However, I was pleased to be proved wrong. Eadlyn is not America. I have read so many different thoughts and opinions as to Eadlyn’s character, that I was also unsure as to whether I would actually like her or not. Here is another opinion to add to the mix. At the beginning of the book, I really didn’t like her all that much. She came across as a bratty, spoilt teenager and I just felt like she really needed some form of discipline in her life. She annoyed me to absolute no end. She liked to remind the reader, and the other characters, that she will one day be queen and just how powerful she really is a person. Anybody who needs to remind people of their position are clearly not very good at what they do. Power lies where people believe it resides (thank you, Mr Martin, for that piece of insight!).
However, as both the book and her selection carried on, I felt myself warm up to her a little bit. I actually began to like her because I could see just how hard she had it ever single day. Not just that, but the selection actually opened up her eyes to the way in which she was behaving to those people around her. People weren’t afraid to criticise her actions and she began to change her behaviour when she realised just how bad she was. I am all for forgiving people and characters their faults when they truly feel that they need to change. By the end of the book, I was actually impressed with just how far she came as a character and just how much she changed within a short period of time.
Having said that, there were also traits about her that I loved from page 1. She is a very decisive character and she knows what she wants and she is not afraid to go after it. She is a very independent woman (perhaps a little too independent) which helps her get a long way within certain things. She was also quite sassy and funny when she let her guard down and even made me laugh quite a few times throughout the book.
I didn’t feel quite as strongly about this selection as I felt about shipping America and Maxon. I suppose this could be down to the fact that Eadlyn didn’t want the selection to begin with and only begins to truly partake within it toward the end. If I had to pick someone at the end of the book, I quite liked Kile. I also liked Erik, however, he is not a part of the selection and I feel that this leaves quite a few readers wondering just where Cass is going to go with that particular relationship. The chemistry between Kile and Eadlyn was addictive from the first time we actually see them together. However, I feel as if their relationship progressed from hatred of one another to friendship far too quickly – it needed to be dragged out a little longer.
I really enjoyed this book and I am definitely looking forward to the next instalment! I gave this book 4/5 stars 🙂
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