The Selection

By: Jason J. Nugent

Narrated by: Paul Jenkins

Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins

Publisher's summary

One teen, thrust into the impossible, battles to survive.

A violent ritual terrorizes the young men of the planet Anastasia. It’s known as...the selection.

It’s brutal. Possibly fatal. And now...it’s Eron’s turn.

He has 30 days to fight his way through deadly animals, mysterious creatures, and bloodthirsty competitors on his quest to Victory Point. Survival depends on forming alliances, but the more time he spends with a boy named Phelan, the more he questions if he is to be trusted.

As Eron maneuvers his way through dangers and pitfalls, he learns there are risks greater than death along the route to Victory Point. He could become...Forgotten.

Fans of The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent will love this fast-paced, action-filled adventure with exciting twists and turns from USA Today best-selling author Jason J. Nugent.

©2017 Jason J. Nugent (P)2017 Jason J. Nugent

Great start, a lot of unanswered questions

This is a nice short listen with a lot of interesting story elements teased throughout. I feel like this is a great primer to a larger series and I look forward to hearing the next! I can see great potential in how this story could evolve based on what we learn.

My only real complaint is that a lot of the interesting elements you learn through the book feel like glimpses of a larger world/story (which is great) but the ending felt a bit abrupt and unsatisfying because you want to hear more but you are left with even more questions. I think this is great to get you into the next book but also frustrating (immediate gratification!). Regardless, I enjoyed the listen and will be watching for the next book.

Narration was great and I don't really have any complaints. Delivery was pleasant and a reasonable about of variation between characters (a couple 'low' volume dialogues to keep an ear out for but otherwise great). I would have no issues picking up other works narrated by Paul Jenkins.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

nice listen

the story was cute and nice enough a very cool listen to have I had some little issues with but the story was cool and very nice

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

A good first book

While it might not have been the most mentally stimulating read it was satisfying and never slow. You get the story without too much extra. Brutal, traitorous, heart wrenching.
"I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review."

A good start

I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

All in all, this was a good book. I thought it was interesting in its premise and nicely paced. My only mild complaint is that it left me with a few unanswered questions and had a somewhat abrupt ending. That being said, it was well narrated, and I would say it is worth checking out.

Overall, it was a good story.

I feel like this story was inspired by a few things.
I explained it to my friend as being a basic premise similar to the Hunger Games meets Harry and the Hendersons (but not campy) trapped in the movie Lost Boys.
It was interesting. I was kept entertained and the story had some interesting twists.
It was narrated well and written decently. There were a couple moments in the writing that threw me off momentarily, but it quickly righted itself.

all in all a good listen. If I get a chance I will probably listen to the second book in the series.

I was given a copy of this book in audiobook form in exchange for an honest review.

Dystopian Coming of Age Story

I would have given this story 5 stars but I didn't like the ending. This is the story of an alternative dystopian society where boys must participate in a trial of manhood and culling called the Selection when they turn 18. Eron faces pain, death, violence, and betrayal as he struggles to survive to the promised rewards at the end of the trial and to win the hand of the girl he desires. It is really a well-written story, and as long as you go in knowing that it is a true dystopian story and not everything will turn our as you want or expect, you may like it more than I did. For me, I liked it very much until the conclusion.

The narration was good, and different voices were given different characters, and the inflections were varied in respect to the situations and emotions the characters experienced.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

A lot left unanswered.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

I have a split-opinion about this. The book certainly has entertainment value. But it has a lot of stuff which we have already seen in other such "survive the trial" stories like Hunger Games. And then at the end, a lot of questions are left unanswered. Is there going to be a sequel? Definitely.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The author tried to wow us with bunch of twists in the book. Some of them were really surprising while others were fairly obvious.

What three words best describe Paul Jenkins’s performance?

Soft, monotonous, could-have-been-better.

Do you think The Selection needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Yes, definitely needs follow-up book. A lot of questions are left unanswered in this book.

Any additional comments?

I received this audiobook for free from the author / narrator / publisher in exchange for an unbiased review.

Interesting premise, medium story

This is book 1 in The Forgotten Chronicles, which, with what I now know after listening to the first book, seems like an interesting overall theme for a series.
The premise as laid out in book 1, The Selection, is intriguing: what if human males had to go through a brutal selection process to gain sexual access, just like a lot of animal species. This first book focusses on one such month of Selection, following 18-year old Eron on his way through it.

As I stated above, an interesting premise. However, I had some issues with the story, and I'll mention four of them:

For one, it was not explained why several of the teen boys engaged in brutal and deadly fights against eachother voluntarily, since there was no need for it. The story makes it clear that there is room for everyone strong enough to survive their 30 days of the Selection trial. So why fight eachother and not help eachother against, for instance, the wild and ferocious predators roaming the forest they're travelling. I think I would have liked it better if they'd all banded together (with internal conflicts between them) fighting against a hostile environment that culled them one by one throughout the story. Or else, that there was an internally consistent reason to fight eachother, like a limited number of survivors allowed.
Second, it was not clear why the main character didn't remember anything about his training. Only near the end this gets some explanation, but that felt very unsatisfactory, it left me with the feeling that his lack of memories was purely a plot device.
Third, there is a lot of repetition in the dialogues. People keep repeating and repeating themselves, which I found quite annoying.
And lastly, the main antagonist was so one-dimensional I wanted to skip every part he was in. Literally nothing was explained about his motivations, about who he was, etc. etc. And he too seemed to have about three sentences he kept repeating over and over, with a vocabulary of less than ten words. I mean, come on.

I was glad that the ending, although very predictable to the experienced reader, was what it was and I tip my hat to the author for that.

As for narration, I was quite underwhelmed by Jenkins' soft tone and rather monotonous way of narrating this story. For me, this made especially the main character seem as weak as he was constantly accused of being. The narrator's voice range seemed limited, and when the text states "deep voice" for The Forgotten, he actually chooses a higher tone instead of deeper.

In conclusion, in my opinion this may be a nice story for very young teens, of say 10-12 years old. The main 'lesson' of the story as revealed in the last chapters also seems to accomodate this age group best. But for it to entertain adult readers, it needs a lot more fleshing out and far more complexity.

I do maintain that the overall premise is interesting, and I would find a (better fleshed out) series about the Forgotten, as the series title promises, enjoyable.
I'll keep an eye out for part two and see where it leads.

~ I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review. I was not required to write a positive review and this reflects my honest opinion of the work. ~

Good Ride for all ages

If you could sum up The Selection in three words, what would they be?

Interesting,Concise,Thoughtful,

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Selection?

The ending is a set up for the sequel.

What does Paul Jenkins bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

More nuance to the story and characters, he is a gifted Narrator.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

N/A

Any additional comments?

I asked to receive this book and this review is being given on my own.I would be glad to buy
other books from this Narrator and Author.

Try the book you will enjoy it.

Interesting Story

I'll be honest, I listed to both this audiobook and the next one in the series back to back so don't really recall where one ended and the other began. The introduction to this other world was spectacularly executed and the characters well fleshed out. You truly feel for them as you travel with them through this alien world and the trails they face.