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evanmcomer 's review for:
Chosen Ones
by Veronica Roth
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book is an exploration of one of SFF’s most recurring tropes—the chosen-one narrative. The story is at its strongest and most compelling when it’s grappling with things like PTSD, drug use, the lasting effects of trauma, the way we glorify certain individuals as heroes, and societal change. The action/adventure plot of the book, though, was less satisfying because it seemed to fall back into some of the tropes the first part of the book critiqued.
The first part of the book sets out as an interrogation of the idea of what it means to be a “chosen one” in a work of SFF. Specifically, it looks at things like trauma, violence, loss, and the inequality inherent in stories that give a lot of power to a few people. As promised on the jacket, it does this by opening at the “end” of the traditional heroes journey and zeroing in on the way things like conflict and celebrity can affect the characters at the center of these kinds of stories. The central question underlying much of this part of the books is whether the group of chosen ones (and more specifically THE chosen one out of that group) are really chosen or whether society and the state have made turned them into something special to meet their own needs. But the second part of the story departs from this narrative by starting a new heroes journey. And the author chooses to answer the questions raised in the first part of the book here by unambiguously showing us that one of the characters is in fact a chosen one. Other readers might like this conclusion, but I felt like the first half of the story was setting me up for one ending, while the second half delivered the opposite.
That’s not to say the book is bad; rather, it’s just OK. There are parts that I did really enjoy. For example, the identity of the big bad in the second part of the book is a mystery, and I thought the conclusion of this storyline was well done (if a little late). The second half of the book also does a good job of showing how the line between good and evil is often quite blurry. The author definitely understands the nuance and the conflict that underly traditional chosen-one narratives, which is one of the points that shines throughout the book.
The ending lost me, however.One of the main characters does something really terrible after all is said and done. Although the author devoted some pages to trying to show her grappling with the consequences of her actions( I felt like the enormity of the situation was glossed over in favor of tying up other loose ends. The effect was that this set up some kind of weird denouement where nothing is OK, but where we’re also supposed to feel like it is. The final battle was also anti-climactic and rushed. I think this is probably a problem in the editing. My gut says that, if the author had taken 50 pages out of the middle of the book and used them to fill in the ending, it would have resulted in a much more satisfying conclusion.
In sum, a very compelling first half of the book, a meh second half, and a not-so-great ending mean this gets 3.5 stars from me.
That’s not to say the book is bad; rather, it’s just OK. There are parts that I did really enjoy. For example, the identity of the big bad in the second part of the book is a mystery, and I thought the conclusion of this storyline was well done (if a little late). The second half of the book also does a good job of showing how the line between good and evil is often quite blurry. The author definitely understands the nuance and the conflict that underly traditional chosen-one narratives, which is one of the points that shines throughout the book.
The ending lost me, however.
In sum, a very compelling first half of the book, a meh second half, and a not-so-great ending mean this gets 3.5 stars from me.