The crown (Kiera Cass)

Since The crown is the fifth book in the Selection series, the summary will be for the prequel called The heir.

The crown princess Eadlyn is forced to hold a competition for her heart in order to calm down riots and entertain the population. Even though her parents met and learned to love each other through a similar contest, she doesn't want to even embrace the possibility of finding her soul mate in a group of random suitors and just hopes to end her selection as soon as possible. But as the competition begins, she realizes finding her true love might not be as unlikely and impossible as she thought.

"You have to embrace the idea of imperfection, even in the thing that is most perfect for you."

To be honest, I didn't have anything close to high expectations for this, mostly because I didn't enjoy The heir even nearly as much as I did the three prequels with America as main character. However, while The crown isn't necessarily what I'd call a phenomenal book, it didn't disappoint either. It definitely is a solid ending to a series with a lot of up and downs.The biggest problem with this novel is probably that it's so short. I mean, it's not even 300 pages long. Because of this, everything felt rushed, from the plot to the relationships between characters. The plot in general is so predictable and none of the little plot twists managed to suprise me even in the slightest. But let's be honest, noone reads this series in hope for an incredibly intense storyline, but rather for the romance. And it was, despite being so cheesy a lot of the time, pretty cute. I'm not gonna lie, what I liked most about this book was seeing all the characters from the first three novels in the series all grown up and didn't care that much for any of the new ones, but it's not like they bothered me. The writing is okay, I'm honestly not the biggest fan of Kiera Cass' writing and it often felt over the top. I understand she's trying to create a romantic atmosphere, but some quotes are just too much, like sunshine having a melody. Seriously? I might just lack the experience of having a love life, but I can't imagine ever hearing the melody of sunlight. Anyway, all in all it is a very enjoyable, easy and quick read and the perfect one to get you out of a reading slump or just to motivate you to start reading more.
The characters are mostly alright, but Eadlyn as a main character still annoyed me so much. Seriously, how can two awesome characters produce such a shitty one? I don't even know if Eadlyn is such a brat just because of her upbringing, which apparently went completely wrong, or if that's what her personality is like. At least she wasn't as horrible as she was in the prequel, but I also don't feel like her development worked the way Cass wanted it to because honestly, at the end I still couldn't stand her. I wanted to punch her so badly at several scenes, but especially when she explained how she doesn't like bowling since she has to put on used shoes to do it. Honestly, can somebody please dump her in a huge trash can? Her suitors however, despite seeming really stupid and one-dimensional sometimes, are quite likeable and their interactions with Eadlyn are mostly pretty fun to read about. Like I mentioned before, I loved seeing all the characters from the first three books again and I was suprised to see how many appearances they made and obviously quite happy when I realized that they still play a quite important role. One last thing about the characters: why do all of them have such weird names? Is it so hard to come up with names that an ordinary human being can pronounce properly?


Rating: 3/5 ✹

I'm really sorry this review turned out being so confusing and all over the place. I guess I need some time to get into writing reviews again after my longer hiatus. However, I'll do my best to read more and hopefully I'll find enough time to review most of the books I read. Anyway, have a fantastic day!

Leah

The 100 (Kass Morgan)

First of all, I'm sorry if I get anything wrong or mix storylines with the show, but I read the books some time ago (back in April, I think) and have read a lot of other books and rewatched the tv show since then, so I might mess this up a bit, even though I'm trying my best.

The books, which are called The 100, Day 21 and Homecoming, follow the four teenagers (and POV characters) Clarke, Wells, Bellamy and Glass. At the beginning of the series, all of them are on the colony, a spaceship whose inhabitants are the last living humans who managed to escape the nuclear war centuries ago. But supplies, most of all oxygen are running out, so the government decides to send one hundred teenage criminals down to earth to see wether the earth is survivable again. Among these delinquents is Clarke, Well's first love, so he commits a crime in order to accompany her, as well as Glass, who manages to escape back onto the colony last-minute. Bellamy however wants to get onto the transport ship to protect his little sister Octavia, whose relationship had to be a secret all their lives because of the one child rule on the colony. Once they arrive on earth and realize earth in fact is survivable again, they have to fight for not just their survival, but also the survival of mankind. While the unfamiliar environment holds a lot of dangers, the teenagers need to build a new society whilst they still have to deal with secrets from their pasts and unexpected relationships are developing. Glass hopes she got away from all these risks with her escape, but soon realizes, her life is in as much danger as it would be on earth. Everyone of them has to deal with the decisions they made or they will haunt them forever.

"You couldn't expect anyone else to share your suffering. You had to carry your pain alone."

I just realized I wanted to put too much information in this summary, but I hope it still made kind of sense to you. Anyway, I really enjoyed this series, and especially amazing was following those four really different characters and their storylines. At the beginning they all were in the more or less same situation, but during the series thanks to character development and a lot of events they differ more and more from one another. While you learn more about each person through flashbacks and memories, which are done soo good, you can see where they are all connected with each other. Apart from that, the books aren't really special, but definitely a great read if you're into sci-fi or dystopian books.

Now you may ask me wether I prefer the show or the books, I honestly can't give you an anwser. The storylines and characters are nearly completely different, so you'll have a hard time comparing those two. The show made a lot of changes, but I'm glad they did since the book just wouldn't work as a tv show, because it's focus is more on relationships and there's just not enough action and death in there. But reading the book really made me wish they would've included Glass' storyline in the first season. In my opinion it would've fit quite well and added definitely something interesting to the story. Anyway, the great thing about those two versions is you're actually able to experience two very different stories about the similar characters and the world they live in. And if you don't think that's awesome, I don't know what's wrong with you.

Rating:
The 100: 3/5 ✹
Day 21: 3.5/5 ✹
Homecoming: 3.5/5 ✹

Wow. This just became waaay too long. But, my point is, if you enjoyed the show (which you definitely did because it's AMAZING), you should check out the books, and the other way round. I'm quite sure most of you will like the show a lot more, but please give the books a chance, they'll be a nice "addition" to the series and will help get you over the looooong hiatus.
One last thing: Why the f*ck would whoever designed the covers (don't get me wrong, I actually like them a lot, especially the one for Day 21) put Finn on two of them, if he doesn't even exist in the books?
Thanks for reading all of this, I hope you're having a great day!

Leah