Sometime after the fourth World War North America has become one kingdom--Illéa. As a fairly new nation the country has its problems, but most are hidden from America Singer and the rest of the nation.
America is an artist from the fourth caste in a family who, though they love each other, struggles to make ends meet. She has a secret boyfriend, Aspen, a 6 and two castes below her, just above the homeless and casteless. When the generational Selection comes along to find a Beloved Daughter of Illéa to marry Prince Maxon Schraeve. America's mother and sister are ecstatic and insist she apply. America doesn't want to give up her home and Aspen's love, but when even he asks her to sign up, America is torn. She applies and is Selected.
With 34 other young women, America travels to the capital and the monarch's palace where she will compete for the prince's hand. But America doesn't want Prince Maxon or the crown he offers--she just wants to get over Aspen's rejection and go home.
After their first meeting gets off to a rocky start, Maxon and America decide to remain friends and America agrees to keep his confidences until he can find a young woman from the group as his wife.
Followed by cameras and surrounded by women grasping at all Maxon can provide, America hopes to help the man whose friendship means more and more to her. Through rebel attacks and surprising returns the two gradually come to know each other better until the prince narrows the 35 Selected to 6 Elites.
The Selection is a story that, while fitting into traditional princess story guidelines, bucks convention with a female lead choosing not a man, but herself as she struggles to play the hand she's been dealt. Middle school and high school readers will understand the competition between the Selected and the search for true friendship among masses searching to display their most perfect selves.
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