21. Royal Fluff

The book:  The One (The Selection #3)
The author:  Kiera Cass
The rating:  4 stars

I'm sure everyone has those guilty pleasure books, the kind that they'd never imagine buying in any format other than eReader, the kind with no redeemable qualities whatsoever, yet the kind that simply cannot be put down and that is devoured within twenty-four hours of purchase.  This book is one of those.  I'm typically a big proponent of YA literature, vehemently opposed to those who deem it to be pointless drivel.  Just like any other type of novel, YA can be profound and meaningful explorations of character and theme, investigating slithers of teenage reality through intriguing and imaginative narratives.  On the other hand, The One is pure, unadulterated fluff.

From a standpoint of literary quality, The One fares poorly.  It has an overbearing love triangle, a caste-based dystopian world that is uncannily reminiscent of every single other caste-based dystopian world ever written, a vanilla rebel plotline, and following in the tradition of current popular dystopias, a ridiculously high body count, something that feels completely unnecessary in a novel which is essentially a futuristic The Bachelor.  Other faults include the novel introducing characters and having them disappear with no warning, not even a cursory mention in the epilogue (I'm looking at you, Paige), subscribing to the YA fad-du-jour of the male lead having a physically abusive father, and the fact that Cass seems dedicated to giving everyone positively horrendous names:  Maxon; Amberly; America; Aspen; Clarkson; the list goes on and on.  Furthermore, America is your cliche teen heroine, full of romantic angst, horrible communication skills (90% of the plot relies on every single conversation causing more problems than it solves), and a fierce streak of independence... absolutely nothing at all like Collins' Katniss, or Condie's Cassia, or Roth's Tris.  Not one bit. Nuh-uh.

All that taken into consideration, I loved The One.  Despite being away on vacation, my eyes were glued to my eReader all day, stylus tapping through pages during dinner at an Italian restaurant or underneath the covers of my hotel room bed, the downy comforter not doing enough to prevent my Kobo's telling glow from keeping the others awake.  The story is fluff, but sometimes a little fluff is a good thing.  The One is entertaining, readable, and addicting; it takes only a few chapters to become hooked on Cass' comfortable prose.  Somehow, it is so incredibly inviting, deliciously engrossing even in its banality.  Cass writes in a way that makes you want to keep reading, in a way that makes all else seem irrelevant.

I hate love triangles, I hate reality television, yet for all its flaws, I did not hate The One and The Selection series.  The worldbuilding was cliche; the characters flat; the plot trite, yet I still hung on every word.  Overall, I'm incredibly eager to see what Kiera Cass will write next; if she can write such a captivating novel with everything stacked against it, I can't wait to find out what she can do when her words have a good plot, world, and characters to back them.