Reviews

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

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candiecane333's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

3.0

Intersting premise, dynamic world building & characterization but it fell flat. The MC Sloane was supposed to be 30s but she was more like a brooding whiny teen who never grew up because of the conflict with the Dark One which made the book very slow. The ending felt rushed. I wish Genetrix was more fully developed & more on the aftermath of the final showdown.

jullecomer's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

5.0

nytr's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced

4.75

ineshelsen's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

foxyloowho's review against another edition

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2.0

I’ll admit that I went into this book with very high expectations. I absolutely adore the Divergent series, so when I saw I immediately requested an ARC of this book when I saw it was by Veronica Roth.

Things I liked about this book: I really liked the detail and explanation the author put into describing Chicago. I’ve never been there but the way it was described in the book easily helped me envision it. Secondly, I adored Mox, from the moment he was introduced. I thought he was a great character and loved his backstory. I also liked the addition of the “files”. I felt like this really helped explain and make sense of some of the events.

Things I didn’t like: I actually had to stop reading shortly after starting to check that this was indeed the beginning of a series. All the things that have happened to the characters BEFORE the events of this book could have easily taken up an entire book. One I would have gladly read and also felt like would have provided a lot of insight and understanding of how the characters got to be the way they are now. It was pretty disconcerting feeling like I had jumped into a series in the middle, despite knowing that wasn’t the case. The book spends a pretty considerate amount of time going back and explaining a lot of these things in greater detail as well, which proves it could (and should IMO) have been a book by itself. It was my biggest complaint about this book.

I also spent 90% of the book really disliking the main character, Sloane. She came off as selfish, bitter and just generally unlikeable. Another reason I think a previous book would have made a lot of sense and probably kept me from feeling that way. I did end up understanding her better and coming around to somewhat liking her in the last 10% of the book, but it’s a really odd feeling to read the majority of a book and not liking the main character.

Lastly, despite supposedly being a book meant for adults, the characters overall came off as very juvenile. I don’t necessarily mind that as I read a ton of YA, but I had different expectations due to the way it was described as.

Overall, I still really enjoyed this book. Which I think really speaks to Ms. Roth’s storytelling abilities. I stayed interested in the book throughout and I will definitely be reading the next one.

*I received an ARC courtesy of Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

kmparsons's review against another edition

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3.0

I’m leaning more towards 2.5 stars. The concept was really interesting, but I feel like the magic system needed to be better explained than it was. The main character was incredibly unlikable until the last 100 pages or so. And I was confused about what was happening for much of the book. Things moved very quickly with little explanation. However, it was fast moving and I really enjoyed the story and the characters, for the most part. This was not my favorite book, but if you are looking for an easy fantasy read, I would recommend this