Chosen Ones

Veronica Roth is better known for her YA work - this is her first dive into adult fantasy. She is still following the urban fantasy stylings that characterise her YA work, but taking on more mature themes. Chosen Ones is definitely a book of two halves with very contrasting styles and themes. The first half deals with what happens after a group of heroes save the world - the PTSD and the struggle to find normality. The second half takes these same heroes and asks them to save the world again.

I am going to take these to halves and discuss them separately. The first half examining the impact of what happens after you save the world was really intriguing. The subtle PTSD hints, the struggles to deal with fame and the inevitable historical revisionism that accompanies time all gave a fantastic sense of foreboding. This was wonderful high concept stuff that I have not seen properly addressed in these type of novels before.

The second half sees the heroes transported to another dimension and forced to save the world again. It provided a few interesting twists and some interesting world building, but felt a bit flat after that brilliant starting point. It all felt a bit too ‘hollywood'.

I wish this story could have kept on investigating and developing the themes it initially set out on rather than jumping to the generic actionfest it became. The second half isn't bad, but it just feels such a let down after the interesting setup that came before

Fuck, I absolutely loved this book.
The way the world is set up, explained is just fantastic and the characters are real and feel real. The way the author uses texts and textbooks and evidence Sloanne reads to explain more and give the reader more thoughts is incredible and it made me excited to figure out this mystery. When Sloanna steppped into the other world it gave me a new rush of mystery and excitement, especially with Mox in the picture and how real and painful her break-up with Matt turned out to be.
And the conclusion was hard and painful. And I especially loved Sloanne. She was not good nor bad. She was her own complex person who sometimes didn't make the right choice and I loved that about her, absolutely loved it.
When she collided the two worlds it just felt incredible. She had done something brave and selfish and yet it was something bad and hurtful to some.
It was an interesting read

This was one that started off intriguing, and then ramped up to a fever pitch in the second half. This is actually the first Roth book that I've read (though I've seen the Divergent films), and I found her writing style to be enjoyable and smart.