Review: Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt - Juhina

Title: Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls #1)

Author: Tiffany Truitt

Publication date: June 12, 2012

Publisher: Entangled Publishing

Genre(s): Young Adult (Dystopian)

Challenges: Dystopian, Debut

Source: Publisher
Format: Digital ARC

Pages: 260

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What if you were mankind’s last chance at survival?

Sixteen-year-old Tess lives in a compound in what was once the Western United States, now decimated after a devastating fourth World War. But long before that, life as we knew it had been irrevocably changed, as women mysteriously lost the ability to bring forth life. Faced with the extinction of the human race, the government began the Council of Creators, meant to search out alternative methods of creating life. The resulting artificial human beings, or Chosen Ones, were extraordinarily beautiful, unbelievably strong, and unabashedly deadly.

Life is bleak, but uncomplicated for Tess as she follows the rigid rules of her dystopian society, until the day she begins work at Templeton, the training facility for newly created Chosen Ones. There, she meets James, a Chosen One whose odd love of music and reading rivals only her own. The attraction between the two is immediate in its intensity—and overwhelming in its danger.

But there is more to the goings-on at Templeton than Tess ever knew, and as the veil is lifted from her eyes, she uncovers a dark underground movement bent not on taking down the Chosen Ones, but the Council itself. Will Tess be able to stand up to those who would oppress her, even if it means giving up the only happiness in her life?

The Chosen Ones is another great dystopian that centers more around the romance between the characters of the book. However the dystopian elements are not overshadowed and we get a great deep plot with twists and turns that keep you reading to find out what happens next. The dystopian world is one where humans are becoming extinct because stronger, smarter, and better 'engineered' beings are created to win the war that the humans couldn't win. In this world humans can't marry and the fate of a woman who gets pregnant is death in her birthbed.

Our protagonist does not believe in love and only has hatred for who does, one being her older sister who married a man and got pregnant and died. She felt betrayed that she would choose a man over her family. Since her older sister isn't alive anymore to take the punishment, Tess ends up working as a maid at the Templeton as a punishment. This is where she meets James and her world turns upside down.

I loved the relationship between her and James. She is a human, while he was raised to be an emotionless killing machine. He is confused about all the feelings he shouldnt have and his want to something more than war, and she is confused about her new feelings of love. My heart was beating fast whenever they were together, one for the fear of them being found out, and second for the anticipation that they will finally admit their feelings to each other.

The dystopian elements werent just a setting like so many new 'dystopian' books nowadays, but there is actual conspiracies and hidden revolutionary movements and both the main characters are the catalyst for change. Chosen Ones was intense, heartbreaking, and thrilling; I can't believe that I have to wait over a year (I read this back in February) to get the second book, but the ending? yea, total awesome cliffhanger!

 

4 musical notes!