The Chosen One – Carol Lynch Williams (2008)

misskleber
Jan 11, 2018
2 min read

I could not put this book down.

Honestly, from the moment I picked it up at the library yesterday afternoon, on the walk to the bus, on the bus ride home, while I was making dinner, while I was eating dinner, I read.

Kyra’s story is woven forward from one point in time while using brief flashback to fill in the gaps between Kyra’s knowledge and that of the reader.

Almost fourteen, Kyra is one of The Chosen Ones.

She and her family (her father, his three wives, and her almost twenty strong siblings) live on a compound with the other members of The Chosen Ones.

The Prophet, along with the Apostles and the God Squad, who run everything.

I read so much supernatural fantasy that it was deeply gratifying to read about someone whose world is so different from my own, but was not filled with vampires.

I cannot judge if Williams’ prose are accurate, I have no idea what the isolation might be for a girl growing up on a polygamist commune. Let alone one where books were burned a number of years ago, and the only news of the outside comes as rumours or from cracked and yellowing newspapers caught in the chain-link fence around the compound. Though Williams renders the scene well.

There even happens to be a fantastic and heroic librarian who helps to provide Kyra with books, information, and help when she needs it.

Well worth the read.