Only four girls are left in the competition to win Maxon´s heart and the crown of Illéa; Competent Elise, sweet Kriss, gorgeous Celeste and of course, America.
America still regularly upsets the apple cart of the Illéan monarchy and acts mostly impulsive and careless with no thought what her actions may cause and how that could change her fate with Maxon. As the bad rebels from the South start hurting people caste by caste, America advises openly the whole Illéan populace to fight back. This however, gets King Clarkson angrier about her actions than he was ever before. He wants her gone.
“America, you are full of nothing but bad ideas. Great intentions but awful ideas.”
The conflict between the Southern rebels and the royal family (especially King Clarkson) continue to grow more and more. Between America and Maxon everything is good and they seem to want the same thing: Peace.
When the King is on a business trip in France, the palace gets visit by the leaders of the Northern rebels who want to speak secretly to Maxon and America. One of them America recognises as the girl who saw her hiding up in a tree in The Elite, and bowed to her in a previous attack of the rebels, Georgia Whitaker. The second one is August Illéa, a direct descendant of Illéas founder. They explain that they have no intentions to get the crown, that the Northern rebels support the monarchy and that they want to get rid of the caste system. They also deny that they have anything to to with the Southern rebels who only want to kill off the royal family and leave the caste system as it is. They don´t ask for money. The only thing they want is that Maxon chooses America as his wife. Both, America and Maxon, are angry about them for trying to force them into that decision.
After some time America sees that she truly loves Maxon. But she still has the King against her. Another official Selection Event is happening: The Convicting. In this Event, the remaining girls must publicly condemn criminals to jail. America has to face a thief who is punished to jail for life, for only stealing clothes for his children, she can´t sentence him. While the Public waits for her decision, she realises that this was the plan of the King, to display her as disobedient or merciless to the public. For her, the only solution is to offer her jewelry to the man, to pay of his debt to the king, so he can be released from jail.
The King, enraged about America, forces Maxon to Kick her out of the Selection. Maxon however, does something he does not often do; stand up against his father.
I really don´t know why I liked this series. There are many things to dislike, for example the character development of America, which was not really happening at all. And then there are a lot of things going on that were obvious from the beginning...“America, my love, you are sunlight falling through trees. You are laughter that breaks through sadness. You are the breeze on a too-war day. You are clarity in the midst of confusion.You are not the world, but you are everything that makes the world good. Without you, my life would still exist, but that's all it would manage to do.You said that to get things right one of us would have to take a leap of faith. I think I've discovered the canyon that must be leaped, and I hope to find you waiting for me on the other side.I love you, America.Yours forever,Maxon”
But still, I got hooked and read through it it one strike.
“Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only ever yours to break anyway.”
But although it was obvious a lot of times, there were still some parts that were surprising.
I liked what lengths the King went to try to get rid of America, in what positions he managed her in only to get her to fail, seeing him realise that she actually would be the best choice for being queen. Amazing.
The worst thing about this book was, that America didn´t had much involvement in the main story line other than being the push to it. Evertime something interesting happened, she was staying in a safe room. Not very entertaining...
It still was a exciting end to the series (or to the first section of it anyway) and I´m looking forward to read and review The Heir as soon as possible.
Rating:
