The Chosen turned out to be a bit crazier than I thought, a good kind of crazy though!

To be honest, I'm not sure if I dreamed I read this book because it was different to me than what the summary of the book says it's about. Don't get me wrong, there is some crazy universe these kids get taken to but what I read wasn't about a boarding school, it was about prison...... Am I the one that went to an alternate universe?

Anyway.. when Cade and some of the boys were getting transferred from the prison/boarding school??... they actually woke up somewhere else. When all of the boys finally come together I was thinking this was something like Mazerunner in a way but it went totally beyond that. I don't want to give out any spoilers but they are in some other universe? Planet? I'm not sure but it's crazy and I would have freaked clean out and died the first 5 minutes!

There is this Codex thing that follows them around and can only give them so much information. They find all kinds of stuff from different times in history, etc.

It's a fast-paced little game of what? I'm not telling you and I don't know all of the answers. But I am looking forward to what the end game is going to be with this trilogy because the thing/person/whatnot that have these boys, is freaky!

*I would like to thank Netgalley and the Publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this book.*

Happy Reading!

Mel ♥

I really wanted to like this one, but I found it to be problematic. It started off strong and I loved the jumps between past and present & the character development in the prison scenes. I was excited to unravel the world with Cade. I was SO thrilled to finally read fantasy with a guy main character, especially since The Novice was so popular with readers.

But I was disappointed as the story went on. Nothing was getting figured out, there wasn’t much conflict or drama between the characters, obstacles were getting solved too easily, the new girl characters seemed random and not fleshed out, the pacing was off...to me, it just felt disjointed and sloppy in its execution.

This book reminds me of a Star Trek: Next Generation episode. The villain is an all-powerful being reminiscent of ST:NG's Q. He was part of a race of the super‐super powerful and he liked to manipulate humans. Technically, this aspect was not revealed until late in the book, but the lead up telegraphed that was coming. Still enjoyable.

Cade is a young man in a bit of trouble. He's in juvie for a crime he didn't commit, he finds himself in another world fighting for his freedom and the existence of the earth. I truly enjoyed this story. Cade has to face survival in a rather inhospitable place where his father's lessons in history help him somewhat, however he's got to run from dinosaurs as well. He's a young man who has faced the unfair nature of life, however he has the heart to want to help others. This author has a knack for writing adventurous stories about young men and they're always fantastic. I am looking forward to the further adventures of Cade in the jungle.

As soon as I saw this book I was immediately intrigued!
This book, The Chosen, is the first in a new trilogy and I think it was a fantastic start! I love Cade's character! He is well written and very likable. I really enjoyed the world building in this! I could just imagine what everything must look like. Some of the secondary characters I enjoyed were Quintus and Amber! I loved all the action is this book and I can't wait to read the next one! I recommend this one to all fantasy lovers.

I am a fan of Taran Matharu's Summoner Series and was very much looking forward to this book, the first in a new series. From his previous work I expected excellent world building and a nuanced and likable protagonist. I was not disappointed. The Chosen is a fantastic start to a new series. Cade is a fantastic character, he has depth and emotion, I was absolutely rooting for him the whole book. There are a lot of secondary characters as well, some of which are given more attention than others, but all decently brought to life. My favorites were Quintus and Amber and I look forward to hopefully learning more about them in subsequent sequels. Like Cade, I am a total history fan so there were various points of the story that a found particularly interesting. Unlike Cade though, I am not a huge fan of paleontology or dinosaurs in general so I got kind of bored with the repeated discussion, description and scientific names of them. I also thought it was kind of hilarious that all size measurements seemed to be given in terms of football fields. Overall this book is an action packed ride. It got a little darker than I expected for a YA novel, but I guess that is more of the norm these days. There is a lot of action and problem solving and it's interesting and fun. Loved the surprise reveal at the end and really just cannot wait to read more. After the last page I just kept on hoping that it wasn't really the end!

Taran Matharu did it again! I swear, he just comes up with the most interesting world's and premises and I wonder how he does it. I wish I could just look into his mind to see how his creative process works! I cannot wait for the sequel :)