Review: Chosen Ones
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
In her first book marketed toward adults, Veronica Roth has created a genre-bending sci-fi/fantasy/superhero kind of novel that is built initially on the interesting question of what a person is supposed to do after they save the world and are lauded as heroes. Some survive and thrive, smiling that smile to get in faster and get a better table at the best restaurants. Some are broken, wounded, and addicted. And some are going through the motions of what they think the world and their partner expect of them. That latter category, going through the motions, that's Sloane, the protagonist of Chosen Ones. I say protagonist loosely because, for a time, Sloane is not very likable. She gets better, but the story evolves in a slow fashion, punctuated with news articles and secret reports and other information sources that build out the story but somehow seem to make things slower. And as for the answer to the question of what you do after, evidently, you do it all over again in a different world.
Ten pages into the novel I was engaged by an exchange between Sloane and a reporter when the reporter asks whether elevating her boyfriend Matt Weekes as the most chosen of the "Chosen Ones" isn't sexist and Sloane rebuts his saying what's sexist is disregarding her opinion. There are moments that shine in the book but overall I just felt bogged down in a magic system that wasn't always clear and a narrative that cuts back and forth in time often enough that it felt jarring. I also, oddly, didn't feel the menace of the Dark One as much as I would have expected in any of his iterations. I'm honestly not sure why this book left me rather cold, and I'm also not feeling like I've read an adult sci-fi novel. I wanted to care more about the characters and sadly started wondering if Sloane's PTSD and numbness had kind of sabotaged my ability to engage with her as a character? I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that are going to enjoy the novel. I would still pick up the second book to see where she goes with this story.
The audiobook, narrated in a very somber tone by Dakota Fanning, also has many cameo narrations of the various reports, newspaper articles, and commentaries by a great team of performers.
I received a paper Advance Review Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Want to buy a copy of Chosen Ones from your local independent bookstore? Click HERE.
Want to buy the audiobook copy of Chosen Ones it is available exclusively on Audible, a division of Amazon.
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