The Chosen One

Kyra is not yet fourteen years old, but she has already done a number of things that would not be tolerated in the religious society where she lives. She makes regular visits outside her compound's walls to visit the Mobile Library on Wheels and read the books that are forbidden by The Prophet. She has secret clandestine meetings with Joshua, the boy who she hopes to someday marry. But despite these transgressions, Kyra is very happy living with her father, his three wives, and her twenty brothers and sisters and does not normally question the religious traditions of The Chosen Ones. All of this changes, however, when The Prophet decrees that Kyra must marry her uncle Hyram - a man who is more than 60 years old and who already has six wives. Desperate not to be forced into this unwelcome match, Kyra must make a choice. She can choose to stay close to her family and enjoy the life she has always known...or she can take a chance and strike out on her own, choosing a life for herself instead of one dictated by The Prophet and his Apostles. Neither choice will be easy, and both bring with them great dangers. Will Kyra accept the life that has been handed to her by The Chosen Ones? Or will she strike out on her own and forge her own destiny?

This was an incredibly powerful book. Author Carol Lynch Williams has done an incredible job of creating a character from a polygamist society which most readers will have little familiarity with and making it very real to the reader. Kyra is a powerful character, and the way that she is torn between the life that readers will want her to find and the life she has always known is incredibly believable. It can be very difficult to balance the moral values of the reading audience with those of characters who have very different standards, and Williams managed to do it perfectly in a way that keeps us rooting for Kyra to succeed, but also shows us how a person who has never known anything else would really feel if forced to make the choice. Parts of this book were incredibly difficult to read because of the violence and injustice that Kyra and her community face, but readers will keep turning the pages of this riveting story and emerge with feelings that match Kyra's strange combination of extreme sorrow and empowerment.

Overall Grade: A