The good thing about young adult novels, or at least decent ones, is that you can speed right through them. I read The Chosen One in about two days and probably could have done it faster if I was a little less busy.
I was skeptical of Carol Lynch Williams’ novel about a young girl in a polygamous cult. But it didn’t take long for me to get hooked. The main character, Kyra, is only 14-years-old, yet it has just been mandated that she marry her 60-something-year-old uncle. Her family tries to help her, but the Prophet cannot be swayed. The only escapes from her situation are a secret romance and a love of reading. Books are banned but Kyra sneaks them in from a mobile library. How could I not get attached to a protagonist who loves books? And I’ll even admit that the story made my eyes tear up at least once.
While I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would like a young adult novel, I did think it ended too abruptly. It left me with many questions and unresolved issues. Couldn’t we have had one more chapter to tie things up a little better? Don’t young adults, or those masquerading as such, deserve that too?
