I’ve never read any of Veronica Roth’s YA work, but I scooped up her adult debut. First off, it’s about superheroes and chosen ones, and much like I love gritty takes on fairy tales, I loooooove gritty takes on superheroes and chosen ones. Second, I’d finished Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo last year. I’d been lukewarm on Bardugo’s YA, but Ninth House was phenomenal. I shrugged, and figured maybe I’d have the same experience with Roth, another best selling YA author going adult.
**this is not me having anything against YA. I’m a YA junkie. I just hadn’t particularly gotten hooked by the YA work of these particular authors**
Well there seems to be a pattern here. Because The Chosen Ones kicked all the ass. It’s about a group of chosen ones in our world, after they’ve defeated the Dark Lord. It’s been years and of course they are all sorts of messed up- PTSD, drug abuse, distrust of the governments that trained them and tossed them at the Dark Lord like cannon fodder. So what happens when it seems like the Dark Lord may not be gone after all?
Guys. This book is awesome. It’s well-written, well-plotted, full of complex yet likeable characters and well-thought out magic systems and parallel dimensions. It’s essentially character driven, but still manages to weave in a solid plot that kept me guessing. It’s a great take on the Chosen One/Superhero genre. It’s good enough I’m giving serious thought to re-diving into Roth’s YA work that I’d previously bypassed.
oooh this is all the check boxes, all at once. It’s the conceit that I loved about the Magicians (what happens after you got magic and everything is still the same?) but that was so-so in execution…going to put this on hold!
Do it do it! I was also so-so on the Magicians- it got a bit edgelord for my taste. I feel like The Chosen Ones balances humor with the serious implications and also has characters you really want to root for.
So true re: magicians. Definitely one in which the show ended up being so much better than the books because they de-centered mopey Quentin and experimented with having multiple nexuses of plot
Ohhh seriously? I’ve been eyeballing the show but putting it off because of how I felt about the books. But that makes me want to watch it now!
You have to get through at least a season, a season and a half of nonsense before it starts getting good…but when it does it gets capital G Good, like I finished an episode and just had to turn off the TV and quietly be for a bit before I could go on with my day (if you do end up watching it to the end, you’ll know what episode I mean) (it is THAT good).
It’s got everything (Stefon style): musical episodes, representation out the wazoo, magic, Roman Israel Esquire…
Goddammit. I can’t say no to that! Alright it’s officially going on the list.
Great review. Added to my TBR. The only books I’ve read by Veronica Roth are the Divergent books. My personal opinion is that they are better than The Hunger Games. Would love to know what you think if you decide to read them.
I’ll have to add them to my TBR!
I was surprised by how much I liked her short story from Amazon’s Forward collection, as I reeeeeeaaaaaaaaaly hate Divergent