Review: The Chosen One

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Synopsis (From Goodreads): Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated polygamous community without questioning her father’s three wives and her twenty brothers and sisters. Or at least without questioning them much—if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her. But when the Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her 60-year-old uncle—who already has six wives—Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family.

Carol Lynch Williams has created an emotional journey as we follow one girl who must make a hard decision between her freedom or her family. Kyra is only 13, but she's seen more than what most people see in their lifetimes. She's witnessed beatings of babies, young girls being married off to old men, and woman being murdered for reasons she does not know. Kyra had never thought anything of it, it was what she had grown up to know and except, but when she's chosen to marry not only a man 50 years older than her, but also her uncle, she starts to see the world differently.

Kyra's story is full of emotion and the reader comes to understand the world she lives in, this is a story that was hard to put down from beginning to end as she tries to make the decision whether to escape or give up her freedom for her family. Williams has painted a vivid picture of what this polygamist society is like, and the way Kyra feels is easy to imagine, especially when she keeps thinking she's sinning for reading and hiding books in her tree, or when she wants to be with another boy which she knows is not allowed.

Kyra's journey is wonderful and it was great to see her strength grows as she comes to truly understand the horrors of her society, and understand that if she stays she will never be safe.

Cover: The cover is beautiful. It shows a sort of isolation, which paints th scene so well. The only thing that didn't fit with the cover was the clothing that the character on it is wearing. No girl in the society would wear something like that.

Plot: 5/5 stars
Ending: 5/5 stars
Cover: 4/5 stars
Overall: 5/5 stars
recommend:  For those that love emotion packed stories