The Heir Review

The Heir Review (The Selection Book #4)

By Kiera Cass

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE SELECTION, THE ELITE, AND THE ONE

Summary from Goodreads:

Princess Eadlyn has grown up hearing endless stories about how her mother and father met. Twenty years ago, America Singer entered the Selection and won the heart of Prince Maxon—and they lived happily ever after. Eadlyn has always found their fairy-tale story romantic, but she has no interest in trying to repeat it. If it were up to her, she'd put off marriage for as long as possible.

But a princess's life is never entirely her own, and Eadlyn can't escape her very own Selection—no matter how fervently she protests.

Eadlyn doesn't expect her story to end in romance. But as the competition begins, one entry may just capture Eadlyn's heart, showing her all the possibilities that lie in front of her . . . and proving that finding her own happily ever after isn't as impossible as she's always thought. 

My Review:

When I first heard the original Selection trilogy was going to be extended, I had very mixed feelings about it. I felt like the story had been wrapped up in The One and I was not sure where The Heir was going to take the story. However, I did quite enjoy the original three books and I still wanted to know how Illéa was affected by Maxon coming into power and ending the caste system. Either way, I still read the book pretty soon after publication and flew through it. The Heir had the same addictive quality that I found the first three books in the series had, and I did end up liking the book.

The Heir did address some of the politics in Illéa, but that was definitely not the main part of the story. This book, like the original three in the series, was very much centered on the romance and relationships that Eadlyn was developing during her selection. I felt like there were more politics in this book, however, than in the first three books, since we see from the perspective of Eadlyn, who is going to become queen someday and has to know about what is happening in her country.

Eadlyn is our main character in this novel, and for those who have read The Selection, we remember America’s infamous indecisiveness and stubbornness, which made her very hard to truly like at times. Eadlyn, like America, is not always the most likeable character. I would not say that Eadlyn is indecisive, but she can be very stubborn, which we especially see at the beginning of the novel. However, her stubbornness felt kind of childish sometimes, and I felt like she was just retaliating against her parents instead being stubborn for what she believes in. She also came off as a bit of a spoiled brat at times, which probably came from her growing up in the palace, but that cannot be completely to blame since Maxon never acted spoiled like Eadlyn does. Her attitude just really bothered me at times. All of this did leave room for character development, and we did begin to see Eadlyn start to develop later in the novel, so hopefully she will change more in the next book and become more likeable.

Throughout the book, I liked some of the relationships that were forming, especially when Eadlyn allowed herself to open up to the boys. I felt bad for the boys sometimes because Eadlyn was so closed off and just plain rude to them at times, but many of them were actually quite accepting of Eadlyn and that made me grow to like some of them. Many of the boys in the selection, specifically Kile, Henri and Erik, were much more likeable than Eadlyn, and helped balance out Eadlyn’s harshness at times.

Overall, I liked and enjoyed this book, and I would recommend this to anybody who wants more the Selection world. If you enjoyed the original books, I think you will also enjoy this book.    

I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.