I REALLY LIKED THIS BOOK AND I FIND THAT TO BE PROBLEMATIC. 
 *Deep breath* 
 Let's get this review started. 
 First, this book has terrible ratings. I know it has a 4.16 average rating - which is pretty good - but the low rating are bad. 
 All of the one star reviews I've read (plenty) are merciless, to the point, and also right. 
 They say it's The Batchelor, meets The Hunger Games meets Throne of Glass and they are all right. They also talk about how it is un-feminist, poorly written, and overall sexist - and they are all right. 
 I know these things, they are true, they are in the book - and still I enjoyed it. Now you must understand that I strongly identify with feminist values and make conscious efforts to criticize things that are sexists, encourages patriarcal ways of thinking, and can, in any way, be harmful to women. BUT I STILL LIKED THIS BOOK. Just as much as I like The Weeknd! An amazing singer that can't seem to refer to women in any way other than Bitches and objectifies them in almost every song. 
 I'm a bad feminist (Reference to Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay). I truly am. I am not perfect and this book is a clear examples of how my beliefs collide with what I like. I can't help what I like and what I don't like, and in this particular case I think the best thing I can do is acknowledge all the flaws in this book and keep on liking it as a guilty pleasure - because, as I just said, I can't help what I like and what I don't like, but I can be conscious of its many faults. Let's talk about some of them. 
 The Bachelor. I feel insanely guilty every time I watch the bachelor, it feels archaic and overall really fucking stupid - I still watch it. That happens with this book, a bunch of "Randomly selected girls"" (Bullshit) are all taken to a small guarded environment (castle) so that a man (prince) can mingle and date every single one of them and simply dispose of those he doesn't seem fitting to be his queen. 
 Girls are the enemy. Now when the Selected girls are placed in such environment of course they turn against each other - because other girls are the problem and not the system - and they go out of their way to discover what the prince likes and wants because obviously they'd much rather be everything that a man wants instead of being themselves. 
 Not that kinda girl. In the midst of this caos we meet our protagonist: America Singer, true to herself, wears little to no makeup because those who do wear heavy makeup are obviously fake; She dresses in simple clothes, prefers pants instead of dresses - because obviously dresses are just dumb girly things - and we don't want to be associated with that, no. All while staying true to herself and slowly winning the heart of the prince. 
 See my problems here? See them??? 
 To her credit Kiera Cass (Author) does make an effort to acknowledge some of these things, and towards the end of the book all of the Selected, instead of going against each other, start to slowly support one another - which is awesome, because girls are awesome, and girls that are friends and want the best for one another instead of pitting them against one another is AWESOME. 
 but still all of these efforts didn't make for a redeemable read - and I still liked it, because it was fun. 
 I had a good time. I read this so quickly (less than two days) and I just had a simple enjoyable time in the world of The Selection, but I will still acknowledge its problems and continue to speak openly about them. 
 My final rating would be a 3.5 and I may or may not continue with the second book - haven't made up my mind yet, but the reviews for that one are also awful. 
 Now if you made it this far into my review - thank you soon much for reading and if you happen to feel just as conflicted as I am - high five sister. 
 high five.