From the Bookshelf of Tome Time…

Chosen Ones

Veronica Roth

Start date: June 4, 2020

Finish date: June 14, 2020

Discussion: Upcoming Books

Discussion leader: Karen

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Jun 14, 2020 Karen rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-i-own, tometime

Chosen Ones follows Sloane, Matt, Albie, Ines, and Esther as they try to live in a world ten years after they defeated their planet’s greatest nemesis, the Dark One.

For the first 200 pages, I found this book an absolute slog, as every time Roth raised the stakes, or ended a scene in a cliffhanger, she would then throw in pages upon pages of research (that I assume was what Sloane was reading each day) on magic, powers, the Dark One, and interviews with the characters. Some were scraps out of dis Chosen Ones follows Sloane, Matt, Albie, Ines, and Esther as they try to live in a world ten years after they defeated their planet’s greatest nemesis, the Dark One.

For the first 200 pages, I found this book an absolute slog, as every time Roth raised the stakes, or ended a scene in a cliffhanger, she would then throw in pages upon pages of research (that I assume was what Sloane was reading each day) on magic, powers, the Dark One, and interviews with the characters. Some were scraps out of dissertations, or pages from government memos, and there were so many that the entire pacing for the book was thrown off. This was to the point that I was complaining bitterly about it to my #TomeTime goodreads reading group. The reason was that this was a constant interruption to the plot beat, and gave near-zero useful information after the first two entries. Roth could have placed a short two page dialogue between any of the characters to include the detail about how the world was set up around magic, and that would have covered it. Instead, every time I got to a holy guacamole moment, Roth dropped the pace to zero by making you read pages of a dissertation. When you rejoined the story it was like being slapped with a fight scene out of nowhere for no reason, as you had been sent to sleep by the repetitive articles.

That being said, at around 200 pages (halfway through) I realised I was near-dropping the book off a cliff out of annoyance at this, so I decided to quit reading all the research, and just skip to the story.

Holy shit what a difference! I was blown away by how explosive the plot became. I did go back at the end of the book to read the research and was pleased to see I had made 100% the right call, as they told me nothing I didn’t already know just from reading the story.

At this point the book recovered from a shocking 1 star, to a fantastic 4 stars, as the only nonsense was the articles that really should have been edited out.

There was a really nice segment where Roth included a few named music songs and her characters poured a whiskey to enjoy. I highly recommend a 4DX experience by playing the same songs and drinking a dram at these points, as it really brought the driving scenes to the next level. I could see her writing and thinking it would be cool to have these songs in the movie version (should that ever happen), and they really do fit the plot perfectly. Roth has consistently great taste in music accompaniments.

The plot in the first half was not really needed to set up the second half of the book in any way, so if you want a shorter read, just read chapter 1 and then skip to somewhere around page 200. You won’t miss anything other than some unnecessary world building of Earth...the place you already live but with a tiny bit of magic in it, and a lot of Instagram.

It’s still getting 4 stars though, because the second half of the book was just so great, that I can’t drop it more than one star on overall enjoyment. ...more

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Jun 15, 2020 Sarah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I think this book is getting a lot of unfair shade because it's being picked up by people who loved Divergent and enjoy YA. This is neither of those things. I kind of liked Divergent, but I love that this isn't YA. Yes, that means it's slower, there's a lot more world building and less wham-bam-action-action-snogging. Well, mainly. There is a bit of that.

That's not to say things are perfect. In particular, I thought some of the Big Explanation at the end was somewhat helicoptered in. I can only ...more

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