Review: Chosen by P.C & Kristin Cast

Chosen

Author: P.C & Kristin Cast

Publication Date: March 4th, 2008

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Genre: YA/Paranormal

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Synopsis:

Zoey’s mettle will be tested like never before. Her best friend, Stevie Rae, is undead and struggling to maintain a grip on her humanity. Zoey doesn’t have a clue how to help her, but she does know that anything she and Stevie Rae discover must be kept secret from everyone else at the House of Night, where trust has become a rare commodity. Speaking of rare: Zoey finds herself in the very unexpected and rare position of having three boyfriends. Mix a little bloodlust into the equation and the situation has the potential to spell social disaster. Just when it seems things couldn’t get any tougher, vampyres start turning up dead. Really dead. It looks like the People of Faith, and Zoey’s horrid step-father in particular, are tired of living side-by-side with vampyres. But, as Zoey and her friends so often find out, how things appear rarely reflects the truth…

My Thoughts: Blahhh, that's pretty much how I feel after reading this book. I feel like  I could just make that one word summarize completely how I feel about this book.

I had been pleased with Betrayed because it seemed like Zoey was maturing and turning into a much better person. But book #3 here completely dashed all hopes of that for me. I don't think I have ever been so frustrated with a main character before. I mean, I don't know if we're supposed to dislike her, but I don't see how anyone could not. But even when I tend to dislike a character in a book, or think they are just overall a bad person. I still usually respect the depth and work put into the character to make me feel that way. But in this case, I feel Zoey has the emotional range of a carrot, considerably low intelligence, and not to mention extremely selfish.

I am sure I am making a lot of people upset by saying these things because as far as I've seen this series is pretty popular. But keep in mind, this is simply how I feel, and I can provide reasons for feeling this way.

So here is why I don't like Zoey. Let's start with her friends. She has this group of friends who are incredibly nice to her, extremely generous, they go out of their way to help and please her continuously though out the book. And she does jack all for them in return. She is constantly brushing them off, running away from them, being rude to them, and lying to them. This is not how friendships should work and she has done nothing to deserve the kindness shown to her. Then there's the boyfriend(s) issue. I know love triangles are common, and I'm not against them. I'm as much a sucker for them as the next person. But there is a difference between a love triangle, being torn between who you love more, and flat out  cheating, being selfish, and easy. This frustrated me to no end. Not only did I find it to be incredibly poor character, but it got so old and annoying really fast. Every chapter she thinks "oh I really have to break up with one of these guys". Then the next time she sees one of them. She's all over them like flies on stink and completely forgetting about anything except what Zoey wants and what pleases Zoey. Then she will laugh to herself and think " Oh I'm such a ho". Seriously?! And she is always making these little comments to herself, that to me just prove how insensitive and self centered, and ditsy she is. In every chapter she has to remind us she is such a freaking nerd or geek, because she likes harry potter, or because she watched Star Wars. So anyway, that's just some of the reasons I don't like Zoey. I think I've justified myself.

But I still can't say the book is bad. The story line is still OK, although I found this one to be less interesting as the ones before it. I feel like these book have the potential to be so much better than they are. And I am sad that I don't enjoy as much as everyone else seems to. A lot comes to a head at the end of this book, and things aren't really looking the best for Zoey. All I could think though, was that she completely deserved everything, and all her heart ache was pretty much her own fault.  I'm not giving up on this series yet. I still own two more books in the series and I am going to read them and just hope that Zoey's character will develop a decent personality or some maturity. Because as I said, I do like the actual story. But it's really hard to enjoy the book when the main character gets on your  nerves so much.