I'm the first of my friends to finish this! 
 Actually, is that even worth boasting about? 
 It's not that I 
 A) have an aversion to popular series and thus enter a book biased or 
 B) only read it to review it because it's YA, or even 
 C) got sucked in by the cover and thus put up with it 
 Letter C actually seems like a decent reason. But call me crazy, I WANT to like this series. I want to recommend it, and use Maxon as a reference character of swooning-proportions like a lot of other fictional dudes in my reviews. I want to love these so much, I purchase them in hardback and not just ebook format, like I do for the books I really, really like. 
 BUT DAMMIT. NO. AND ALL BECAUSE OF ONE THING. 
 I cannot get behind America. Call me unpatriotic, but I'm not about to sing her praises. For a character who thinks she's grown, she's really remained at a standstill. The hell is your problem girl?? YOU KNOW HOW YOU FEEL!!! She's just so dumb! I wanted to jump in the book and shake her yelling, "This is a competition!!! Compete already!!!! Stop being such a fanny face!!!!!!!!!" True love isn't about lying, feeling self conscious, and not putting yourself out there. So I sure as hell don't know what she's actually feeling. Maybe premenstrual. 
 I'd love to say more, but I can't review this without spoilers, and I want to give you guys time to finish. Plus, there's really no shockers here. The ending that I predicted was actually a lot better than the one we got. I still think the premise is brilliant, but the execution was poor. I'd like to see a Selection-esque series with cleaner writing, more character development, longer chapters, and better world building. It sucks to see a book do so little when it could be SO MUCH MORE!