Having enjoyed the Divergent series (only the first two books though), I decided to read Chosen Ones because I thought the synopsis was really interesting.
The world building is strong, but the interruptions with the newspaper articles and journals (while very interesting) were too much and slowed down a pace that was already too slow. That would have been fine if I'd liked the characters but I couldn't relate to any of them. I understand the main character Sloane is struggling and I feel for her, but somehow something was missing for me to really like/care for her.
The book is supposed to be a fantasy adult debut (I assumed with grown up main characters) but they still read/sound very much YA to me.
The pace did pick up a little at the end but until then, I really struggled to keep on reading and almost DNFed it.

Thank you to the publisher who provided me with an e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this story drew me to the book - it's not often you get to hear about what happens to the heroes after the villain has been defeated. I liked the way this was explored in the book, if only briefly and wish there was more of this.

Mox and Ziva were the highlights of the book for me. As Mox's story unfolded, I wanted to know more, and Ziva was a fantastic, strong character who brought about points to think about regarding morality.

However, I felt the story was lacking in substance and pace. It started picking up over half way through. Also, a few of the characters in the story didn't appear to be there for a particular purpose and didn't offer much to the plot or character development. Whether they have more involvement in the rest of the books in the series, we'll have to see.

A fast paced and stunning adult debut from Veronica Roth.
From the first page you are pulled in to a beautifully crafted and thought provoking world, that shows just how skilled Veronica Roth is at creating visuals. The characters in the book all have their own quirks and are easy to connect with.

An extremely enjoyable read.

‘Books smelled the same no matter what dimension you were in.’
Obviously, a lot of YA authors are making the next step and upgrade from YA fiction to Adult fiction. The book itself is okay. It is readable, there is action and you want to keep reading. There are a few things, though, that prevented me from giving the book the full 5 stars.

Sloane, Matthew, Albie, Ines, and Esther are the group of five ‘Chosen ones’ who saved the world from the Dark One 10 years ago. We met them on the 10 years anniversary from the defense of the Dark One Eve. The story is told by Sloane, the one with still fresh marks from the battle with the Dark One. She and Albie got captured and tortured by him. This event makes everything unforgettable. She is still stuck in the past, in that house where the Dark One kept them, with the decisions she made. After all these years she has this feeling that nothing is over and nothing is right.

I got quite confused at the beginning of the story and to be completely honest, I lost the thread at some point. Maybe it was me not being involved enough. It was a massive blur from the day of the defendant’s anniversary, thought the Gala, then how it came to Albie’s death and at the end how they end up in the Generix.

So let’s start from the moment they appeared at the surface of Lake Michigan in the parallel dimension called Generix.

They have been summoned by the leaders there to help them defeat their Dark One or as they call him – The Resurrectionist. Why not the Dark One again? Because this one has a whole army of zombies. How cool, huh? But can you imagine the leaders of Generix amusement when the lake surface broke not only one Chosen One, but three? Are they willing to help the other world to fight their Dark One? What should they do to go back to Earth? Won’t tell you of course! You have to read the book.

Now, why I rated it with 3.5 ⭐️ (rounded to 4 ⭐️ in GR).

Firstly, I had some trouble getting into the book. It felt like the story started from the middle and I have missed a greater part of it, or it is a sequel – the second book from a series and I haven’t read the first book. It is very strange indeed. There are some flashbacks that enlighten the story, but that makes the feeling that I missed something deepened.

Secondly, why the author isolated Ines and didn’t include her in the story? I feel like there should be a few points of view because all of them helped to defeat the Dark One. Instead, we have only Sloane’s story.

Thirdly, the story was predictable. I wasn’t even halfway through the book and I’ve already known how the Dark One is and who the Resurrectionist is. This is the main reason why I rated it the way I did.

But we have these amazing documents and reports about the different magical experiments in both worlds, which I found quite interesting and couldn’t wait for the next one. They explain who people tried to ‘tame’ the magic and make it work for them to defeat the Dark One. Generix’s reports explained a lot about siphons – the thing they use to control magic. They are all so impressive and interesting.

Plus, the prophet’s, who made the prophecy who will kill the Dark One, name is Sibyl. Ring some bells, Potterheads?

However, as for me, this book is completed as it is. I wonder what the sequel will offer us. Will see, will see.

Within 9 pages I had a strong suspicion that I was going to be all in on Sloane, and I was absolutely right. She’s the very definition of unlikable, but that just made me love her. Sloane is harsh with absolutely no soft edges, and no interest in having any soft edges. She’s exactly as traumatised as you’d expect from someone given up by their family as a teenager to be thrown into battle against an otherworldy and terrifying evil. She’s jaded, distrustful, and suffering PTSD and insomnia like you wouldn’t believe. It’s totally realistic for the aftermath of a YA story. Sloane’s harsh attitude matches the narrative perfectly. It’s not written in first person but still it feels very much like it’s Sloane’s story, and we’re with her all the way. I just. Love her. The idea that her victory was just followed by dissatisfaction and misery, and a listless sense of not-belonging is what I’d expect from a Chosen One, not a happily ever after. It’s also clear from the start that she’s hiding something, but Veronica Roth does a good job of keeping that to herself until the critical moment without it feeling like we’re being cheated out of knowing.

The world-building is so interesting. There’s some things I can’t really talk about without spoilers, but everything is very carefully crafted. It’s our world, post-disaster. The Chosen Ones are celebrities now more than heroes, and people have forgotten what the terror and fear felt like. There are people who celebrate the Dark One, and people who believe that the Chosen Ones were overrated, and all of it feels like it makes perfect sense. I wish it didn’t, but we’ve got people waving Nazi flags these days, so I can see how it would happen. Slightly spoilery world-building discussion between the lines:

***************************************************

The parallel universe was a twist I didn’t even remotely see coming, but the way that it was created meant that it truly felt like a mirror image of our world. The differences made sense, were justified, while still having a fantasy air to them. Somehow realistic fantasy? I love it. The siphons were a brilliant magic system, and channelling magic through noise created a really vivid mental picture. I would love to see that on the screen to see huge fight scenes rippling with whistles and songs.


************************************************
The premise itself is something I didn’t know I’d been looking for. I love Chosen One stories, and I love even more the After-The-Chosen-One stories. Trust me, my fanfiction history in the early 2010s would definitely show how much I love After-The-Chosen-One stories. (Harry would not have been an auror and I will die on this hill ffs) I haven’t seen a lot of After-The-Chosen-One books done really well, but this was the best of the bunch. It had hopelessness and depression and PTSD but it still carried an interesting plot with enough threat and mystery to keep me fascinated. It also handled the trauma and PTSD well. It never undermined how heavy the topics were, but it had a deft touch. There were moments of positivity, and funny moments, and even just moments where the weight was shared, and that stopped it from getting so dark that it was difficult to read.

The entire way through I kept loudly guessing at plot twists, and being almost right. It was impressive, the way that Veronica Roth gave us so many clues and so many opportunities to put the pieces together and I still jumped to several wrong conclusions before hitting the truth. It was so much fun to read. I got rug-pulled by about four different big reveals, and I loved every single one of them. Apparently there’s a sequel coming to this – I haven’t seen any announcements but it’s listed as ‘The Chosen Ones #1’ on Goodreads but honestly this can be read as a standalone but I would love to see more of this universe and these characters.

2 1/2 stars. I realized somewhere in the last seventy or so pages of Chosen Ones that I could very easily turn this into a positive review. Threads were coming together, showcasing Roth's clever plotting, just as the action picked up and secrets came to light. There's sprinkles of humour:

“Please, for the love of God, don’t be one of those villains who waxes poetic about existentialist nonsense, because if you are, I really will have to cut you,” she said.


And all of this adds up to a book that, looking back, makes me understand why the critics (and probably a lot of other readers) will love it. But I just found it so so slow and boring. How much slog makes the goods worth it? I think your answer to that may decide whether you will enjoy this book or not.

For me, it was a real struggle to push through. I genuinely only made myself finish this book because it is the third book I've read in the last six months that is a popular YA author's adult debut - the others being Ninth House and House of Earth and Blood, respectively - and I DNFed the first two. I figured conspiracy theorists might think I was a book-hating bot working for the dark side if I DNFed yet another. And if you're thinking after three books, maybe it's YOU, then don't worry, I have already had that thought myself.

This one is almost like a sequel to any YA fantasy novel where the chosen ones have saved the world. It looks at what happens ten years later when they're all grown up, miserable and traumatized, dealing with depression, addiction and PTSD. 'Part One' of this book is all about their adult lives now-- the daily struggle post world-saving. The world-saving itself is mentioned only vaguely in these first 120 pages.

I was definitely intrigued by the premise, but it very quickly became dull when so little was happening. Then 'Part Two' gets a little wild at first so I was thinking "Right, yes, now we're getting to the good stuff!" But then that, too, dampens and seems to consist of the characters wandering around or having training sessions (a mind-numbing part of Roth's Carve the Mark, I seem to recall) where the characters "modulate the strength of [their] magical breath".

I also think a major factor that didn't help with the slowness was the third person narrative. I don't know if it is supposed to make the book seem more serious and grown up, but a book like this, with an MC like Sloane - a complex, difficult person dealing with a lot of trauma - would really benefit from being written in first person. I think the third person narrative unnecessarily keeps us at a distance that makes the narrative cold and unengaging.

Aside from being slower and more convoluted, there's still a strong YA vibe running through Chosen Ones. The characters may be older, but they certainly feel stuck in their teenage heads. The conversations seemed like ones that would happen in any YA fantasy. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing, though, just not what I was expecting from an adult fantasy debut.

The ending does make me want to know what happens next, but I don’t know if I can sit through another slow novel of this size. I may need someone to spoil the sequel for me.

I have given the Chosen Ones 3.5 stars. It was a good read, compelling, action-driven, and kept me turning the pages. I loved Sloane's character and felt it was really well crafted and fully formed. She felt real to me. Matt and Esther however, not so much. They felt like cardboard cutouts and their characters never really developed through the story. In fact, after reading the entire book, I only know a handful of things about either of them. The main characters in this story were Sloane, Mox, and Nero. All fantastically well written. The storyline was interesting and I loved the excerpts from the magical books as well as the interviews and documents that were added between chapters. I loved the premise of the story too. The world building was superb and the prose and descriptions vivid. There was a lot to really love in this book but somehow as I was reading I kept forgetting that these characters were supposed to be adults, almost thirty, and I stumbled every time age was mentioned. To me they read like YA characters, which is not a bad thing, I love YA, but there was such emphasis placed on this being an adult novel, and to be honest, if the characters aged were changed, it really wouldn't have made any difference.

Sloane's character really stood out for me. I loved her story, her struggles, and she was flawed. As a reader, I got to feel her emotional turmoil and loved how she kept true to herself as the story progressed. Mox was another damaged character who felt real and created a lot of empathy in the reader. I was rooting for him.

I knew when I hit the 75% mark in this book that it wasn't going to be a standalone and by 90% I was worried that it would end on a cliffhanger. I'm happy to say it didn't, but I did feel the ending was slightly rushed considering all the build up to it.

I am grateful to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this and I look forward to continuing the story and reading more from this author.

*I received an ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thanks for the free book.*

That was an odd read. Five Chosen Ones have defeated the Dark One a decade prior and our protagonist, Sloane, is still trying to adjustas well as the other Chosen Ones. Her boyfriend (and maybe fiancé) and former leader Matt, for example, uses his fame for philanthropic issues, Esther uses her fame to make money via Instagram. Sloane has PTSD, avoids the public, and tries to distance herself from her traumatic past as much as possible. But the past is about to intrude in the lives of the Chosen Ones once more. But not in the way they expected.

I liked parts of this novel a lot, but I had problems relating to the characters. Not because of Sloane's psychological issues (that was well done btw), but because the backstory was so massive that the entire novel felt sort of meta. The Chosen Ones were stock characters fighting a Dark One who was also an evil stock character. Even if this was partly deconstructed during the course of the novel, it still felt more like an meta-thought experiment than a real novel. It was too much and too fast. I also disliked the insane amount of newspaper articles, reports / statements or excerpts from fictive books. It made the world building even harder to digest. Nevertheless it was interesting, I liked how things changed and how the story did manage to surprise me in parts at least. I'm generous so...

Four Stars

A friend gave me their ARC, so I could read the book and give feedback, as the eARC formatting made it unreadable. This review will go live on my blog on 10th April.

This book is an exploration of the chosen one trope, one of my favourite, so I was quite excited to read this.

The friend who gave me their ARC did so as they couldn't get into this book, so I was warned that it might not be as enjoyable as I had hoped. It's certainly a very slow start, and it wasn't the easiest to get into as it takes a while for the plot to become obvious - not until part two really (which also really changes the direction of the story).

I think it would have been more engaging if there was more movement and drive in the first section, instead of a lot of backstory about the battle they fought a decade ago. Not necessarily more action, but at least to feel like there was a goal or forwards momentum driving the plot, as the blurb doesn't really come into effect until the start of the second act.

A lot of this backstory (as well as some world building) is told through government files and magazine articles, so this is a book for those who like mixed media stories. However, the amount of "this is what happened when they were fighting the chosen one" meant that the story in the present was broken up and made even slower.

The first half is all about the effects of being a chosen one, and the toll it's having on the now-grown teens. They all have different coping mechanisms, some of which work. It was a very interesting look at "what comes after" - and I liked how it wasn't all happy stars and unicorns, but that the long lasting effects of the trauma they'd been through were shown.

From the cover, it looks like this is a portal fantasy. And it is, sort of. It's not at all a portal fantasy in the traditional sense, and the change to portal fantasy is very sudden and unexpected. It took me a few chapters to realise what had happened, and it's also a big change in story direction that caught me by surprise. There were a few plot points that didn't quite make sense, but that may have been because I was trying to get my head around this new plot.

Overall, the second half of the book was more interesting and active, but it did take a bit of effort to get to it thanks to a slow start.

I loved the premise of The Chosen Ones, it sounded like a book I would really enjoy! I found that I got about halfway and then the story flipped and I lost interest. Not the fault of the writer, I just think I didn’t like the way the story went. Maybe I’ll come back to it and try again, but for now, it wasn’t for me!

DNF @ 50%

This is the third book this month that I have to put down. Not sure if I am picking up wrong books or if that is my reading slump taking charge.

I had such high hopes for 'Chosen Ones' by Veronica Ross! The divergent trilogy is one of my favorite YA dystopians and I really was expecting some great things from this author.

But 'Chosen Ones' felt like a lot of telling and no doing. In this book we meet the four chosen ones years after they defeated the Dark One and saved the world. Each one of them deals with consequences of their victory differently.

Sloane, one of the chosen four, is struggling to live a normal life while memories of the horrible past events haunt her dreams. We are told some snippets of the past through reports, magazine excerpts, etc. As I said, there is a lot of telling and not much showing.

The concept is very interesting - magical artifacts, magic in the modern world, different dimensions and big evil force to overcome. But the way the story is told, with a lot of info dump, didn't let me get attached to the characters the way I wanted to.

I'm sure that all action will take place in the second half of the book, but I'm just not interested and invested enough to patiently wait for the story to get better.

Whilst a few aspects of the story fell short, overall I enjoyed Roth's "Chosen ones" and its take on the hero/chosen trope. I will certainly be reading the second instalment of this trilogy.

I really struggled with how to write a description of this without giving any massive spoilers away and I simply couldn't, so i'm going to dive right into the characters. The story is told from the perspective of Sloane, one of the 5 Chosen Ones prophesized to save the world from the Dark One. Sloane was a character that I bonded with almost immediately, she is still suffering trauma 10 years on, she is sick of trying to hide her true self from the public, her friends and loved ones and has this niggling feeling in the back of her mind that something just isn't right. Her relationships with the other chosen ones were beautifully written, you see each characters personality come through in their interactions; Albie, he and Sloane were held captive by the Dark One and thus have formed a crucial bond, one knows what the other needs and is unafraid of their darkness; Esther, the socialite of the group, with her huge Instagram following curated from her childhood home where she spends her days looking after her terminally ill mother, Esther and Sloane are probably the most similar and their clashes can be enormous, but that also leads to a greater understanding of each other; Ines, is a character you learn little about and yet her trauma from the times of the Dark One are obvious through booby trapping her room to her constant knee tapping when in stressful situations, and finally Matt, the Chosen One of chosen one's, he's the golden boy, the one every wants to kiss their baby and speak at official occasions, considering that Matt and Sloane have been together the past 10 years, he's the one she feels she has to put on a front for, the one she feels never truly understands what she is going through. There are other characters in the books who become more prevalent in part two but I can't really mention them without giving away spoilers.

This was my first time reading a mixed media style book, the majority of the book is set in the present and from Sloane's perspective but interweaving all the chapters are snippets from history books, books of poetry, scientific journals, newspaper articles and pages from diaries. These added a whole other dimension to the story, it enabled us to be almost ahead of the characters, you got insights into the history of this Earth, where the Dark One came from, how we first discovered magic as well as part events that created a world so wholly encompassing you could almost step off the pages and into the streets of Sloane's Chicago. Every single scrap of information you learn in this book is relevant, and when it all ties together at the end you get almost mixed feelings of satisfaction and annoyance, satisfaction that the author managed to bring the amazing story to a close and annoyance that you didn't see how it would end sooner.

While there are romantic relationships in this book, for me, the relationships that really stuck out were the ones between our chosen ones. They all have their own little quirks, tells and traits that set them apart and make for an intriguing group, a group that need each of it's separate parts to perform as a whole. I got wholly invested in one character, loved them with all my heart and then the author went and did the inevitable and killed them (no spoilers it's in the premise.) I was devastated, and it took me a little while to recover. The romance itself is written well, we see the progression of Matt and Sloane's relationship, see them realise exactly who the other is and that sometime the face they put on for the public doesn't necessarily show whats going on inside.

One of the things that stood out for me was how this book focused on the aftermath of the event. It's such a rarity for people to talk about the trauma, how saving the world isnt all it's cracked up to be. It is, I imagine a lot easier to write about the hero's saving the world from the big bad villain, that actually admitting that the hero's are just normal people, people who have major issues from something that was out of their control, that they might not fit into the 'ideal' of a traditional hero, and that some things stay with you... long after the fight happened. She deals with the trauma beautifully, never throwing it in your face, but giving you little snippets, just enough to whet your appetite and give you a better understanding of the characters and their motives and behaviours.

This book has the plot twists of plot twists... you will never see it coming I promise you. The premise gives us no indication of where the story is going and I was thrown for a millisecond and then things started to come together. The foresight that Roth uses in this book is tremendous, and has you literally slapping yourself wondering how you didn't see it coming.

I hadn't read anything by Roth before, and though her Divergent series isn't one I am eager to pick up I will certainly be buying an of her new works after this. With one book she has cemented herself amongst some of my favourite authors and I am eager to see where she plan's on taking this story. An easy 5/5.

Ten years after saving the world, Sloane and her friends have to do it all over again in the next universe over.

I had two problems with this book that won't apply to other readers. One is that my ebook version was messed up, with sections in the wrong order; I kept having to flick around to figure out where the rest of a paragraph was. The other is that it hit one of my major peeves; it starts in the middle of the story and we don't get the backstory for quite a while. Plus, it ended right when things were getting interesting; I would have loved to have kept going a while more.

It's an interesting, intricate, well thought out story, but I didn't like our POV character and I didn't really enjoy the story for the reasons outlined above. I'm sure it'll do well apart from that.

I enjoyed reading this book and I felt that the story was well executed.

The characters had depth and added a lot to the overall sense of the book and it was very enjoyable to keep turning the pages.

I’m a huuuge, huge, Veronica Roth fan because none one rips my heart from my chest and walks all over it like she does.

That did not quite happen here. Honestly, the entire story seemed to me like a less gay, more adult version of the Carry On series by Rainbow Rowell but if there was something I liked more in this book than in any of the author's previous ones, were the characters.

Sloane, baby, I love you! And her guy wasn’t too bad either. I really loved the romance and the way all the characters interacted with each other but the absolute icing on the cake was that no single character in this book was one single thing! Veronica wrote about men that want committed relationships, friends that accept each other's flaws and different places in each other lives, girls that like makeup and are still brave in the face of evil, women that are tough and both give and accept comfort, ...I really, really loved all these characters. I just wish that the author had written them younger because despite or maybe because of all that they had gone through, they didn’t always act their age.

Also, extra points for the fashion and architecture that Roth came up with because it added so much to the story.

It wasn’t my most emotional read, but I liked it regardless.

Thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss and Hodder & Soughton for this DRC.

This was a tale of complexity, the creation of a world(s) that really captured my imagination but no way could I have predicted this wild story direction and culmintion. Veronica Roth once again has proven she has a great imagination and ability to commit this to the page.

I do like a chosen one trope but this really was a reimagining of that idea with a washed up, traumatised and arrogant crew. Sloane was the protagonist that was just treading water after her great input in saving the world ten years ago. I really liked how the world unfurled its laws and history through her flashbacks but also her reading of past documents. The magic of that earth was pretty creepy at times, with the fight to save the world having been somewhat gory and violent. I didn’t like many of the other crew apart from Albie and maybe Innes but she was in the background. I liked the second part much better.

When the world and story twisted life got much more exciting and I got more invested in the story. I loved the elements and mysteriousness of the needle, Sloane’s connection to deep dives and Mox. This story really was a case of not knowing who were the good guys and who were the bad guys; my ideas got flipped on their heads.

There is a concentration investment needed for this story, the world building comes in layers and pieces but nevertheless it is intricate and you need your brain switched on. The culmination did not let me down and I am a little unsure where another story will spring from for this series but I am here to read more. On a side note, I can see this making a pretty good film.

Thank you to Hodder Books for the early review copy.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this, but as the story got going I became more and more gripped by it. I loved Sloane in all her flawed beauty, if ever there was a kick ass heroine this is it!

The story was beautifully written, with it all coming together at the end in a way that was totally unexpected. It was a good ending and one that didn’t disappoint.

You really must read Chosen Ones, it was a pretty spectacular read.

I liked the premise of the story, but it could have done without all the articles in the storyline - I felt the shear amount of them were not relevant and bored me a little to be honest.

That being said, I did like the characters and the story picked up at a faster pace half way through

Thank you Netgalley, publisher and author for an advanced copy of the book

The first book that I read of Veronica Roth was Divergent, which I loved, Insurgent was great and then it fell apart a little. I was just hoping that this book aimed at adults would be a huge turning point but for me, it just fell a little short again.
The chosen ones had been young teenagers that met certain criteria to face the dark one and destroy him before he destroyed our world and they did! Well, Sloane did! the story drops back to explain how the 5 became the world's superheroes ten years ago. They had remained celebrities, but now they are bored and frustrated, especially Sloane who was suffering from PTSD.
When one of the five is killed it really throws a spanner in the works and the story begins to really take off.
No spoilers you may really be bowled over with this book. I just could quite gel with the characters. The action does increase but it did seem more a YA than a full-on adult novel. I just think that the characters still seemed like teenagers that hadn't quite matured.
There is going to be a second book I believe but I may hold back and see what is said about it first before jumping in.
I wish to thank NetGalley and the publisher for an e-copy of this book which I have reviewed honestly.