The Chosen One

Kyra is the 13 year old protagonist of The Chosen One, a young adult novel à la the polygamous compound from Big Love. Kyra is the 5th of 20 children born to 1 man and his 3 wives in a cult-like compound, where the message of fundamentalist Mormonism has gone from marginal and alternative, to cruel and insane.

It seems that on this compound, people who believed in the way of polygamy lived a decent life following their belief, in which a man cannot obtain entrance to Heaven without at least 3 wives, and a woman cannot obtain entrance without bearing children. The benevolent prophet of this sect has died, and his son has taken over, bringing with him an era of terror and jack-thugs.

Kyra loves her family, loves her life, and mostly doesn’t question the Word, though she does question these new ways. She questions the rule prohibiting medical help for her mother, who is bedridden with each of her pregnancies, and has suffered three late term miscarriages, and had 5 live births. She is 28. Kyra questions the rule prohibiting the reading of any books outside of the bible. Soon after the new prophet took over, there was a ritual book burning, where the families all brought their books together to be destroyed. She questions the rule that the prophet can marry girls to whomever he sees fit, can pull families apart and strip a man of his wives and children. She sneaks off the compound and borrows books, which she hides in her skirt, from the bookmobile. She sneaks out at night and meets a boy she likes, talking about the books she likes, music, and um….kissing.

It turns out that Kyra’s 60+ year old uncle has had his eye on her for awhile, and now that she’s 13, he’s petitioned to the prophet to have her as his 7th wife. Her uncle is one of the ‘God Squad’, one of the inner sanctum, and so she is promised to him. The idea of marrying her father’s brother is abhorrent enough to her, a young girl in love with a young boy, but when her uncle reveals his true self to her, she decides that she must attempt to find a way out of this doomed marriage.

The Chosen One was immediately gripping, and I tore through it in a day. The story was surprising in parts, horrific in parts, and predictable in parts. I really enjoyed it, though I found myself ultimately unsatisfied at the end. I wanted more answers and resolution. Even with a slightly unsatisfying ending, I liked the book a lot. I think the true gift is that while Kyra is living and accepting a life that the vast majority of readers cannot identify with, she is accessible enough that the reader can relate to her right away.