Review: The Queen by Kiera Cass

His world looked like a storm. I was going to be its center.

Title: The Queen (A Selection Novella)

Author: Kiera Cass

Genre: YA Dystopian Romance

Rating: C-

Recommended For: Die hard Selection fans only

Source: Library e-book

One-sentence review: The Queen does not reign supreme with me, being about as bad as that pun with its chauvinistic, unimpressive background story that adds very little to The Selection series as a whole. 

TBR It: Goodreads

Buy It: Amazon

Do you see an unintentional theme in my reviews lately? Heir of Fire, Red Queen, The Queen... I'm in quite the monarchical kick these days (I read all of them in that order)!

I checked out The Queen e-book from the library around Valentine's Day because my incredible husband surprised me with a Kindle Paperwhite (we don't even do Valentine's Day!!) and I had to use it immediately! I enjoyed Cass' Selection series and I was curious about The Queen and surprised to know it wasn't about America as queen, but Queen Amberly's experience in the Selection process.

Here's why I hate novellas: The Selection as a series did not need this story. I'm probably going to upset a lot of fans of Kiera Cass by saying this, but The Queen makes me feel like Cass can't let go of this series and/or wants to keep profiting off of it until she can't anymore. I guess if either of those are true then it's not my place to say it's right or wrong, but it feels desperate to me and I kind of wish I wouldn't have wasted my time reading this. Overall, I feel what was a really solid series loses an insane amount of credibility (also why they should have never made a Sex and the City 2 movie, but I digress...).

My first issue with The Queen is that reading about Prince Maxon's parents falling in love feels a lot like hearing about your own parents falling in love.... "Ewww, gross." I was not intrigued by the romantic aspect for awhile, which is weird because if Cass can do anything it's write romance. Eventually I was on board and not so weirded out by it. I did like that Clarkson (the future king) let Amberly see his vulnerabilities and it brought them together, but it took some time before it wasn't awkward.

This story also read somewhat anti-feminist to me at times and that bothered me because it wasn't necessary to the story other than showing that Clarkson is, was and will forever be a stubborn asshole (sorry, I know it's a teen book but I had to). The series as a whole has a very "The Bachelor" feel and Clarkson baiting girls to do silly things like cut their hair and picking a queen based on how much they cut off only emphasized this backwards way of thinking. I don't think Amberly following Clarkson's orders to cut her hair should be seen as a symbol of him falling in love with her, which is just what an impressionable teen audience might translate. For the record: I am not a super-feminist in that I think all guys are jerks or anything, I just think Amberly should be loved for something better than how much hair she cuts when she's told a guy will like it better.

To make this novella worse, it ended so abruptly that if you told me Cass wrote it as a timed in-class essay I would have believed you. I didn't necessarily want more, but there were so many loose threads that I inwardly groaned realizing it probably paves the way for more novellas. Well, I won't be reading them. Super fans of this series might be willing to overlook how empty this novella is, but I am not impressed and continue to scrutinize series-related novellas. Thank goodness I was able to read this on my awesome brand new Kindle Paperwhite so the experience wasn't as painful as it could have been!