50 Fun Facts About The Selection

Kiera Cass's The Selection is often pitched as The Hunger Games meets which reality dating show?

The Bachelor is the obvious model: 35 girls move into a palace and compete on camera for one prince's hand. A weekly broadcast keeps the whole country watching who stays and who goes home.

In Kiera Cass's The Selection, America Singer is born into which caste of artists, musicians and performers?

Five is the artists' caste, and its members live gig to gig. A family like America's eats well only when richer households keep hiring them to entertain.

Which caste sits at the bottom of the ladder in The Selection, covering the homeless, runaways and addicts?

Eight is the bottom rung, and falling there doubles as a punishment. In The Elite a disgraced contestant is stripped of her rank and made an Eight overnight.

Early in The Selection, what does America Singer do to Prince Maxon when she misreads his intentions?

Knees him in the groin, and stays in the contest anyway. Maxon forgives her, and the two go on to become close friends who trade secrets and advice.

Which Selected girl, America Singer's best friend, is caned in The Elite for a secret romance with a guard?

Marlee Tames takes fifteen strokes and loses her caste for it. Maxon then hides her in the palace kitchens, where she marries the guard she fell for.

Where do America Singer and Aspen Leger hold their secret late-night meetings before she enters the Selection?

A tree house hides the couple for two years. They slip out after curfew to meet there, an offence that can mean prison in Illéa.

Where does America Singer first meet Prince Maxon in The Selection, after begging guards for fresh air?

The gardens become their spot. Maxon orders the guards to let a panicking America outside, and she promptly tells him she has no feelings for him.

America Singer, heroine of The Selection, grows up in which province of Illéa before leaving for the palace?

Carolina is home to America and to Aspen, who lives next door. Being neighbours is how the pair manage to keep their romance a secret for so long.

Which hobby does Prince Maxon of The Selection series say would be his career if he were not royal?

Photography is Maxon's escape from palace life. In The One, America finds his bedroom wall covered in pictures, hundreds of them of her.

In The Selection, the royal palace of Illéa stands in which province, the seat of the country's capital?

Angeles holds both the capital and the palace. That is why the Selected are flown in from every corner of the country and then rarely leave its walls.

Which Selected girl, a model from the Two caste, is America Singer's chief rival in The Selection?

Celeste Newsome plays dirty, goading another contestant into hitting her so the girl is sent home. She only makes peace with America late in The One.

Who secretly whips Prince Maxon after America Singer's stunt on the Report in The Elite?

His father, the king, has been beating him for years, and Maxon's back is covered in scars. America learns the truth only when the two are locked in a safe room during a rebel attack.

Which holiday does Prince Maxon mark with a palace ball at America Singer's suggestion in The Elite?

Halloween had gone uncelebrated since Illéa was founded, so the ball is a novelty for the whole court. While they dance, Maxon tells America he means to propose when the time is right.

Throughout America Singer's Selection, Illéa is fighting a long-running war against which foreign power?

New Asia is where drafted soldiers risk being sent, so the war hangs over every family with sons. Maxon ends it with a truce once he is on the throne.

Under the rules of the Selection, a contestant's romance with anyone but the prince counts as which crime?

Treason can carry the death penalty in Illéa. That is what makes America's secret meetings with Aspen inside the palace so dangerous for them both.

Besides singing and playing piano, America Singer of The Selection performs on which string instrument?

Violin is the instrument America seems to love most, though she plays several. Maxon's wedding gift to her is four pianos, placed around the palace.

Which finalist, the last girl left against America Singer in The One, turns out to be a Northern rebel?

Kriss Ambers entered the Selection as a rebel plant, then fell for Maxon for real. Kiera Cass has said he would have married her if the final attack had not intervened.

What radical idea does America Singer pitch live on the Report in The Elite, getting the broadcast cut off?

Eliminating the castes was her pitch, argued from the founder's own secret diaries. The show was pulled off the air mid-speech and she was ordered to pack for home.

Which American TV network filmed two pilots based on The Selection but never ordered a series?

The CW shot one pilot in 2012 and a recast second attempt in 2013, then passed on both. A different actress played America each time.

Which streaming service announced a film of The Selection in 2020, then cancelled the project three years later?

Netflix had a director attached before dropping the film in 2023. It joined two unaired pilots and an earlier studio deal on the list of screen versions that stalled.

Which Selected girl is kept in Prince Maxon's Selection largely for her family's ties to an enemy nation?

Elise Whisks stays because the palace hopes her relatives abroad can help stop the fighting. Once Maxon rules, he makes her an ambassador.

Which of America Singer's three palace maids ends up marrying Aspen Leger after the events of The One?

Lucy and Aspen fall for each other during The One, and America only catches on when she sees them kiss. Maxon later offers the newlyweds a home of their own outside the palace walls.

Which palace official drills the Selected in etiquette in The Selection, having once taught Prince Maxon too?

Silvia is the royal planner, a stickler who runs the makeovers, the camera crews and the manners lessons. She is thrilled when America marries Maxon and gains a new respect for her.

Which veteran presenter hosts the Illéa Capital Report and interviews the Selected on air in The Selection?

Gavril Fadaye took the royal announcer's chair at 22 and has fronted palace broadcasts ever since. The One reveals he had been working with the Northern rebels all along.

In The Elite, America Singer and one rival co-host a reception that charms royal visitors from which country?

Italy's princess Nicoletta is so taken with America that she tells her to get in touch if she ever needs anything. In The One, that friendship quietly pays for the Northern rebels' weapons.

In The Selection, what does Aspen Leger pay America Singer with each time she sings for him?

Pennies are all a boy from the servant caste can spare, and America saves every one in a jar. She hands them back after the breakup, but a single coin sticks to the glass and goes to the palace with her.

After a funeral in The One, a letter reveals which member of America Singer's family was secretly a Northern rebel?

Her father, Shalom, wrote the letter before he died. In it he admits he found the founder's diaries in her palace room and passed word of them to his fellow rebels.

At the Convicting in The One, what does America Singer give up to clear a thief's debt rather than jail him?

Her jewelry pays what the man owes: earrings and a bracelet from Maxon, plus a necklace from home. She had realized the sentencing was staged to make her look either cruel or disobedient.

What surname do Prince Maxon and his royal relatives carry in Kiera Cass's Selection series?

Schreave replaced Illéa as the royal name when a cousin, Porter, married into the throne after the founder's direct line of kings ended. Maxon is Porter's grandson.

Princess Eadlyn, narrator of the Selection novel The Heir, was born seven minutes ahead of which twin brother?

Ahren would once have inherited the throne as the firstborn son, but his parents changed the law so the elder twin could rule. He later leaves Illéa to marry a foreign princess.

Which reluctant suitor in The Heir grew up in the palace with Princess Eadlyn and studies architecture?

Kile Woodwork never even applied. His little sister slipped his name into the draw, hoping a royal wedding in the family would make her a princess too.

Which cheerful suitor in The Heir, a cook by trade, speaks so little English that he relies on a translator?

Henri Jaakoppi makes it all the way to a proposal in The Crown, then steps aside when he sees whom Eadlyn truly loves. He even offers to bake the wedding cake.

Which man does Queen Eadlyn publicly propose to on the Report at the very end of The Crown?

Eikko Koskinen, known at court as Erik, was never one of her suitors: he came to the palace as another man's interpreter. Proposing to him breaks the rules of her own Selection.

In The Heir, Princess Eadlyn's twin brother elopes with Princess Camille, heir to the throne of which country?

France's Queen Daphne, who approves the secret wedding, grew up as Maxon's closest friend. She told him she loved him just before his own Selection began.

In The Crown, Eadlyn and her remaining suitors take lessons in which language, the official tongue of Swendway?

Finnish is all that one of her Elite speaks fluently, so every date with him runs through an interpreter. Eadlyn finds herself talking to the interpreter more than to her suitor.

Who is revealed in The Crown as King Maxon's secret half-sister, raised quietly inside the palace for years?

Lady Brice is the child of the old king's affair, and by law she should have been killed as a rival for the throne. Maxon brought her to court instead and made her one of his advisers.

At the end of The Crown, Queen Eadlyn announces that Illéa will become what kind of state, with a prime minister?

A constitutional monarchy gives every citizen a vote, which is Eadlyn's answer to the riots that dogged her family's rule. She breaks the news in the same broadcast as her engagement.

What medical emergency strikes Queen America at the end of The Heir, moments after news of her son's elopement?

A heart attack puts America in the palace hospital wing for surgery. Watching her parents through it, Eadlyn decides she wants her own Selection to end with a real engagement.

Which hobby does Princess Eadlyn guard so closely in The Heir that she walks out on a date when asked about it?

Fashion design is Eadlyn's private outlet, and many of her outfits begin as her own sketches. She bolts from an evening with Hale Garner the moment he brings it up.

The prequel novella The Queen follows which future queen through her own Selection, years before America Singer's?

Amberly, Maxon's mother, was a Four who did the back-breaking work of a much lower caste before she won Prince Clarkson. Illéa came to adore her on the throne.

Kiera Cass says The Selection began with her wondering about Cinderella and which Old Testament queen?

Esther was one of many young women gathered at a palace before the king chose her as his queen. Cass wondered whether she, or Cinderella, ended up happy with how things turned out.

Which Friday Night Lights actress was cast as America Singer in the first unaired TV pilot of The Selection?

Aimee Teegarden, who played the coach's daughter Julie Taylor, shot the pilot in 2012. When a second attempt was ordered a year later, the role was recast.

Which illustrated companion volume to The Selection series gathers its four novellas with bonus scenes and a map?

Happily Ever After bundles the stories told by the prince, the guard, the queen and the favorite. It adds short scenes from a rival's point of view and a map of Illéa.

What color is the dress on the cover of The Selection, the first novel in Kiera Cass's series?

Blue, red and white gowns front the first three books in turn, the colors of the American flag. The first dress was really purple-gray and was recolored after the shoot.

By the time of The Heir, former palace guard Aspen Leger has risen to which military rank?

General Leger, as everyone now calls him, is among the royal family's most trusted men. He even taught the young princes how to handle a saber.

Kiera Cass, author of The Selection, was born and raised in which Atlantic coast resort city?

Myrtle Beach is where Cass grew up and finished high school. She went on to study history at Radford University in Virginia.

Which rebel leader in Kiera Cass's The One, a direct descendant of the country's founder, has no wish to rule?

August Illéa supports Maxon and wants reform, not a crown. He startles the prince by asking him to marry America, the contestant the rebels admire most.

How does Prince Maxon become king late in The One, before he is even married?

Rebels kill both his parents when Southerners disguised as guards open fire at the ceremony. Maxon is shot as well, throwing himself in front of America.

Which Hollywood studio bought the film rights to The Selection in 2015, in a deal that never produced a movie?

Warner Bros. lined up producers and a screenwriter, but the project stalled. The rights later moved to a streaming service, which shelved its own version too.

Which southern province of Illéa is home to Prince Maxon's mother before she wins her own Selection?

Honduragua also sends a girl to Maxon's own Selection a generation later. That contestant, Anna Farmer, is dismissed early for striking a rival.