Trivia / The Selection

• Dear Negative Reader: There was some controversy in 2012 over Kiera Cass and her agent reacting badly to a one-star review of The Selection on Goodreads; in a Twitter conversation they insulted the reviewer and discussed ways to get the negative review buried. Cass later apologized to the reviewer after receiving backlash over this.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The Selection was one of the many young adult dystopian books published following the massive success of The Hunger Games. Because of that, many people have taken to calling it a THG ripoff, although there aren't that many similarities (at least no more than any other recently published dystopian book).
  • The CW pilot was trying to play this up. It frames the Selection as a distraction to keep the lower castes from uprising, as well as having a rebel group attempt to kidnap America and make her a symbol of their cause. Amusingly, America does end up helping the Northern rebels, which ends up saving her life (along with the lives of several others).
• What Could Have Been:
  • In Cass' original plan Maxon and Clarkson were going to die, leaving Amberly alive. She would have adopted America because she wanted a daughter. Then America would have married Aspen, making the two Illea's new king and queen. This was changed when Cass realized Maxon would have been the harder, challenging choice. This could also explain why the Love Triangle was settled so clunkily in the finished product.
  • There have been multiple attempts to adapt the books to the screen (either as a TV series or a movie), with the project getting stuck in Development Hell since 2012. The CW originally held the adaptation rights and ordered a pilot in both 2012 and 2013, but neither were picked up for a full series. In 2015, Warner Bros. bought the rights and were working on a film adaptation of the first book, then in 2020 it was announced Netflix would be creating the film adaptation.

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