The chosen one

By: Carol Lynch Williams, 213 pp.

In the mind of a 13 year old girl who lives within a compound of a cult, I felt her pain, her excitement, her fears, her sadness, and her love in this well written novel.

Kyra Carlson has been chosen to marry her 63 year old uncle. She has her eyes set on a 17 year old boy named Joshua Johnson. However, she is told to have feelings for another that is not your chosen husband is a sin and very wrong in their community, and calls for punishment.

Kyra has 22 siblings between one father and three mothers. She loves her family so very much!

Kyra's Mother Sarah is six months pregnant and very ill so Kyra helps her mother cook, clean, and raise her younger siblings (which is a duty of all the daughters anyway).

This strong young girl has to fight for what she believes is right, not what her family and community thinks is right.

Kyra is beaten, humiliated, and forced to marry her uncle Hyrum Carlson. She has to decide what she should do. She wants to escape. Can she get away without hurting her family? Can she get away without being killed by the "God Squad?" If she is able to get away, where will she go?

She has been offered a ride to town by the book mobile driver, Patrick, who comes once a week to loan her books that she is not allowed to read per her community Prophet. So to be able to read these books that she borrows, she hides them in her favorite secret tree and reads on her free time after her chores are done.

To find out more of Kyra's story, read "The Chosen One" by Carol Lynch Williams.