The
masterful first novel for adults from the mega-selling author of the Divergent
franchise.
Fifteen years ago, five ordinary teenagers were singled out by a prophecy to
take down an impossibly powerful entity wreaking havoc across North America. He
was known as the Dark One, and his weapon of choice—catastrophic events known
as Drains—leveled cities and claimed thousands of lives. Chosen Ones, as the
teens were known, gave everything they had to defeat him.
After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal... for everyone but
them. After all, what do you do when you’re the most famous people on Earth,
your only education was in magical destruction, and your purpose in life is now
fulfilled?
Of the five, Sloane has had the hardest time adjusting. Everyone else blames
the PTSD—and her huge attitude problem—but really, she’s hiding secrets from
them... secrets that keep her tied to the past and alienate her from the only
four people in the world who understand her.
On the tenth anniversary of the Dark One’s defeat, something unthinkable
happens: one of the Chosen Ones dies. When the others gather for the funeral,
they discover the Dark One’s ultimate goal was much bigger than they, the
government, or even prophecy could have foretold—bigger than the world itself.
And this time, fighting back might take more than Sloane has to give.
Book
1
Buy Links
Amazon US ~ Amazon UK ~ Amazon Au ~ Amazon Ca
Apple Books ~ Google Play ~ Kobo
Audiobook (US) ~ Hardcover (US) ~ Paperback (US)
William Morrow (HarperCollins)
Erica
– ☆☆
2 – I Will Not be Reading More of this Series – Stars
Chosen Ones is the debut in a new series by Veronica Roth, in the adult
genre instead of the Young Adult genre she dominates. I will admit, I fangirled
hard for Divergent, with the original cast of characters, whom I rooted
for as if they were real to me.
This novel was one of the most difficult for me to read, and not just because
of the formatting issue I encountered. Formatting issue was due to the fact
that there were three types of texts in the content. News pieces, redacted
documents, and what was happening in the now, all of which looked different on
my app. I had to zoom in to see the news pieces and the documents, which meant
I was zooming in and out every few pages. The oddest part was how the font was
embedded, to the point it wouldn't change via my app. The worst part was how
this also affected the backlighting, where it wouldn't darken or lighten or
even go to my system backlight settings. It was on as bright as my tablet would
go. All these poltergeist-like things only happened on this book, as I kept
opening others to check to see if it was a glitch. So imagine almost 500 pages
of migraine-inducing insanity.
Now onto the content itself. It was awful. Awful. Others may love it, but I
surely didn't.
Imagine being dropped into a 10-book series at the final book, but you're not
allowed to read the nine books prior (because they don't exist), then at the
last bit of the finale, you're thrust into another dimension known as a
spin-off...
At the start, Sloane was giving an interview, and I was hoping against hope
that when I turned the page, we would be thrust back in time to experience it
for real, like a teaser to whet my appetite for more. Nope, still the 10-year
anniversary of the Chosen Ones taking out the Dark One. Where we were given snippets
and info-dumps of the events that occurred 10 years prior.
Let me tell you, what happened back then was intriguing, only we don't get to
experience it, only get a small fraction of it in a confusing swirl of too much
information at once.
I understand what Veronica Roth was trying to achieve. The aftermath and how it
shaped the characters. They're treated like heroes, celebrating one of the
worst experiences any of them would ever survive, and they all have invisible
wounds because of it. The celebrating and celebrity was like sticking a finger
in a wound and opening it wider to infection.
Sloane is the narrator, and I was able to mostly connect with her,
understanding and empathizing with how she disassociated with emotion,
distanced herself from everyone, and was generally miserable in nature. I
appreciated how accurate that was portrayed. However, the badass angle was so
forced, beyond forced. Sloane would have benefited from a first-person
narrative to eliminate the coldness we saw, since we couldn't dive deep enough
into her head to truly understand or connect with her.
Then there was Matt, who we're told is just the best person on the earth. Good.
Sloane goes on and on about how amazing he is, how she believes he was the only
Chosen One, and they were just his helpers. Yet again, this was forced. Beyond
forced. If a character is good, you feel it from their deeds, you don't need to
be told on every page. It came off as arrogant, as if Matt was soaking up the
celebrity no differently than being obsessed with Instagram. Making a day of
honoring those they lost about signing autographs and being adored by the
masses. Matt came off as fake, no matter how many ways the author TOLD me he
was selfless and good. Fake and pretentious.
As adults, adults who had seen death and destruction and helped save the world,
they would be more mature for their age, which was in the middle to upper 20s.
Instead, they sounded vapid, more young adult than the true teens in the
author's other series. Their actions were juvenile, immature for those who were
so 'good.' I get that the aftermath changed them, which is what we were seeing,
but the before would have been more intriguing with deeper emotional impact if
we had actually experienced the before.
The pacing was odd, slow and crawling, in a complex story that needed something
to speed it up, slowed down more by the way it was written and what was
missing.
I adored the Divergent series. It was an easy read, and by easy, I mean I was
able to fall into a vivid world with resonating characters, and actually bled
emotion with them. Chosen Ones was a struggle, like working to find the
enjoyment in it, while wishing it was written differently. It would have been
an organic experience to start at the beginning, instead of making it feel as
if we're all missing, missing the best parts. The novel is about what the
heroes were up to 10 years later, which wasn't much of anything, instead of
actually writing the dang story from the beginning, the part we wanted. The
characters were shortchanged.
And then came the spinoff portion, where the first 3/4 of the novel was a
summary of what wasn't written in those previous books we see snippets about,
where we're thrust into another dimension, feel totally different, and I hated
that even more.
This reminded me as if the Hunger Games tributes were asked about their lives
10 years later... but we never saw/experienced/read what happened that got us
to that point.
There was zero possibility to fall into the story, connect with the characters,
when we had to puzzle piece PTSD flashbacks and inner monologuing info-dumps,
as if they were a refresher for a series we previously read, only to be truly
dumped into a nightmarish LSD trip.
Done. I'm done. I do not and cannot recommend this novel.
VERONICA
ROTH is the New York Times best-selling author of Chosen Ones, the short
story collection The End and Other Beginnings, the Divergent series, and the
Carve the Mark duology. She is also the guest editor of the most recent The
Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.
Connect with
Veronica Roth
Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Website ~ Goodreads
ARC provided by
Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided
with a free copy of Chosen Ones (The Chosen Ones #1) by Veronica Roth to read
and review.
