Chosen One by Carol Williams

Genre: Contemporary 

Hardcover: 213 Pages

Published: May 12, 2009

Series: None

Rating:★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, 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 Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.

But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-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 forever.

My Review:

This book was nothing short of spectacular. It was a very tense topic that was represented in a young adult novel and I was enraged at the mere thought of what these girls had to face. The book is told from Kyra's point of view and unfolds a story of desperation, love, fear, restrictions, sacrifice, and eventually freedom. Kyra struggles to live her life the way she wants to instead of following the back-wards-way of this so called cult like society.

Williams flawlessly balances Kyra's world and the world she lives in. At one end Kyra's family is full of laughs, love, respect, and kindness. She has many siblings who share many mothers and one father. They share many of the same family like qualities you would expect from a family. However, at the other end is the cruel, darker side of the society. Where killing innocent babies is deemed okay, while someone gets rid of defecated babies and no one bats an eye. Or beating and using torturous means to discipline women. All of this was outrageous and a very difficult pill to swallow. That people do this and have no sense of what is right and wrong. I was frustrated and because of this I did not enjoy this book as much as I had hoped that I would.