The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Kyra Carlson is thirteen years old and in many ways she is very typical. She enjoys spending time with her family, especially her sisters. She loves to read and absolutely devours books. She plays the piano very well and has a crush on a book named Joshua. However, Kyra's life is anything but typical. She has just been informed that she is to become her sixty year old uncle's seventh wife and marry him in one month.

In Kyra's world, a polygamous compound, such things are commonplace. Men have more than one wife (Kyra has three mothers, as her father has to have at least three wives in order to get into Heaven) and young girls are married at increasingly younger ages to old men. All who live on the compound are subject to the will of the Prophet, a man who they believe will one day sit beside Jesus in the kingdom of Heaven, who can read their thoughts and intentions, and on whose will marriages are contracted and lives ended. The books Kyra loves to read? She has to sneak away to check them out from a local bookmobile, because the Prophet has had all books but the Bible burned, believing them to be of the devil. Being caught with them or with Joshua, the boy who hopes to one day choose her to be his wife, means punishment beyond her wildest dreams. It is this man, Prophet Childs, who has ordered that the marriage between Kyra and her Uncle Hyrum take place. No one, not even her father, can dissuade him from this decision. Kyra has two choices: does she stay and marry her uncle or does she try to leave and risk being killed by the God Squad?

I've always been fascinated by religious splinter groups and polygamists in particular, so naturally I loved this book. Kyra's story was such a great look into the mind of someone who has been born into this life that so many of us find difficult to even comprehend. While she sneaks away to read such forbidden books as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Anne of Green Gables, and Hop on Pop, she's in a constant state of worry that the Prophet will either read her mind and discover her secret or that she will be discovered by the God Squad, the compound's police force. But because she enjoys reading so much, and gets such a thrill from every new story, she continues to sneak away and hides her books in her dress or in trees so that they won't be discovered.

I was incredibly surprised to discover that her parents were occasionally her allies. Kyra is so disgusted and appalled at the idea of marrying her father's brother and her parents share that disgust, though not quite as openly. Her father goes so far as to repeatedly speak to the Prophet, appealing on Kyra's behalf, though he knows that he could be punished. These fears are compounded when he is warned that further intervention could mean the loss of all his wives and children, as they could be placed with new husbands and fathers, an action that would result in his being condemned to hell. Her parents disagree with the Prophet, but they have been trained since birth that the word of the Prophet is the word of God. This life, the compound life, is all they know. Her mother, nearing the end of her pregnancy with her eighth child, is under considerable stress and having complications. I did the math and Kyra's mother couldn't be more than twenty six or twenty seven years old.

Kyra knows that a loving God would not permit such a marriage to happen and many painful incidents occur that help her become stronger in this belief and lack of faith in the Prophet. The only question now is, what is she going to do about it? Her story is one of suspense, hope, love, and determination. I can't impress on you enough how moving this story is, especially since it is one that is all too common in the polygamist societies that still exist in this country. The Chosen One is unforgettable.

http://thechickmanifesto.blogspot.com/2009/05/chosen-one-by-carol-lynch-williams.html