Carol Lynch Williams
Author of The Chosen One
About the Author
Works by Carol Lynch Williams
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 20th Century
- Gender
- female
- Organizations
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Awards and honors
- Nebraska Golden Sower - Children's Choice Award
Whitney Awards, Outstanding Achievement Award (2012) - Short biography
- Carol Lynch Williams, who grew up in Florida and now lives in Utah, is an award-winning novelist with seven children of her own, including six daughters. She has an MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College, and won the prestigious PEN/Phyllis Naylor Working Writer Fellowship. The Chosen One was named one of the ALA's Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and Best Books for Young Adult Readers; it won the Whitney and the Association of Mormon Letters awards for the best young adult novel of the year; and was featured on numerous lists of recommended YA fiction. Carol's other novels include Glimpse, Miles From Ordinary, The Haven, Waiting, Signed, Skye Harper, and the Just in Time series.
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Nebraska, USA
- Places of residence
- Provo, Utah, USA
Houston, Texas, USA
Florida, USA - Associated Place (for map)
- USA
Members
Reviews
The Chosen One is a stand-alone YA contemporary novel about Kyra, a thirteen-year-old girl who’s spent her whole life in the insular compound of a polygamist cult known as The Chosen Ones. For the most part, she’s been content with her life and hasn’t questioned it much. However, the group’s elderly Prophet somewhat recently died and after that his son stepped into the role. The new Prophet Childs is far more strict than the old Prophet. He forced all the cult members to burn every show more book they owned with the exception of the Bible, and members’ visits to the nearest town are now pretty rare. He also has a God Squad, brutish bullies who enforce his commands with violence. There are even whispers of them committing murder. Kyra is old enough to remember better days, so she doesn’t like the Prophet much. The story opens with her family preparing for an honored visit from the Prophet, during which he declares that he’s received a vision that Kyra is to become the seventh wife of Brother Hyrum, her own blood uncle who is fifty years her senior. From the moment the declaration is made, Kyra is resistant. She’s been secretly meeting with a boy named Joshua for a while. She’s fallen in love with him and was hoping that he would be the one she would marry. However, both her father’s and Joshua’s pleas to the Prophet on her behalf fall on deaf ears, eventually leading to harsh “discipline” for Joshua and Kyra and threats against her family. Throughout all of this, Kyra often likes to take walks through the desert surrounding their compound, and on one of her wanderings, she comes upon the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels. This bookmobile and all the wonderful stories in it become an escape from her troubled life, while showing her a window into a world she didn’t know existed. With her wedding date looming closer every day and with no other escape in sight, Kyra begins to consider leaving her beloved family behind and trying to escape, but The Chosen Ones won’t let her go easily.
Kyra is the first-person narrator and a strong, smart girl. It’s clear from the opening line where she tells her baby sister she wants to kill the Prophet that she has a major beef with the guy. As all the atrocities he’s committed allegedly in the name of God are revealed, I certainly couldn’t blame her for her animosity. She tries to be a good, obedient girl, but between her own bright mind and the things she’s learned from the reading materials in the bookmobile, she knows there’s something inherently wrong with being told to marry her own uncle. She also knows other things, too, such as the fact that there’s medical treatment that could help her mother who’s having a difficult pregnancy that’s left her sick all the time. Yet the Prophet has declared that modern medicine is of the devil and any woman who dies in childbirth is sinful. Kyra, like any girl her age, has started to notice boys and is sweet on one in particular, Joshua. He likes her, too, and they engage in a number of late-night rendezvouses in dark, quiet places around the compound where they share innocent kisses and make promises to each other that the Prophet makes impossible for them to keep. When the Prophet declares that Kyra is to marry her uncle, I admired her for fighting back even though she’s bombarded from all sides by people trying to “put her in her place” and eventually by being literally beaten down. Even though inside she’s incredibly frightened and sometimes uncertain about the course of action she’s taken, she simply doesn’t give up on forging her own destiny.
Since The Chosen One is classified as a YA novel, I’ll discuss potentially objectionable content in this paragraph. There are a handful of times that hell is used as a profanity, but no other language issues. There’s no drug or alcohol use. Although the term adultery is briefly discussed and Kyra thinks of how she can’t even stand the idea of her uncle touching her, there’s also no actual sexual content. So the most concerning things would be violence and an overarching sense of fear. There’s a feeling of suspense surrounding whether Kyra will ever be able to escape her fate, which eventually leads to some nail-biting moments that I can’t say too much about without giving away spoilers. Then there’s the violence, which overall isn’t rendered too graphically. It’s more the fear that leads to a psychological response. However, there is a scene where an infant is “disciplined” for crying in the presence of the Prophet, nearly leading to her death. There’s talk about murders that have taken place in the past, both of infants and girls, and the implication of a supporting character being killed in the story. There are other abuses, including Kyra herself being beaten, although after the first blow, it fades to black with the story taking up again afterward with the mention of all her injuries. There’s also the twisted nature of the things the cult believes and how the Prophet keeps everyone under his thumb, which can be rather disturbing. So while the thirteen-year-old age of the protagonist might draw the interest of middle-grade kids, I’m not entirely sure if they would be old enough to handle the subject matter given that this isn’t some fantasy world but one that really exists for some people. It would probably vary depending on the maturity of the child and whether they have parental or educator guidance available to help process it. That’s why I would only recommend the book for older teens who I believe would have the maturity level to handle the more realistic nature of the story.
Overall, The Chosen One was a great read. It’s by turns powerful, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and anger-inducing. IMHO, the ability to elicit all of these emotions from the reader is the mark of good writing. Kyra is a strong, admirable heroine who eventually figures out that she must be her own hero no matter the cost. The Prophet and his God Squad made me want to jump into the story to give them a taste of their own medicine. Then there are Kyra’s family members, who drew a certain sympathy from me. Her father seems like a good man who genuinely loves his family, while her mothers are generally good people as well, particularly Kyra’s biological mother. Her siblings just try to please their parents, but I admired her sisters who share the same mother for standing up for her. On the one hand, I sometimes wanted to be angry with her parents for not doing more to protect her, but at the same time, it was obvious that deep down, they had some doubts of their own which they’d stuffed away. They’re simply a product of their upbringing, never knowing another life besides the cult compound, and they’ve had fear—fear of the Prophet, losing everything, and/or going to hell—instilled in them from a young age. So they’re stuck as well and perhaps unable to dredge up the courage Kyra has. The story is at times, tense and suspenseful, making me wonder if Kyra was going to find a way out. It was on track to receive five stars from me right up until the ending, which while hopeful, was a little too open-ended for my taste. I like everything wrapped up in a neat bow, but this one left me with many questions, which I’ll have to answer on my own in a way that will satisfy me. I begrudgingly admit that real life isn’t usually neat, so in that way, the book was sticking to it’s more realistic tone. Otherwise, it was an excellent read, my first by Carol Lynch Williams, but most certainly not my last. show less
Kyra is the first-person narrator and a strong, smart girl. It’s clear from the opening line where she tells her baby sister she wants to kill the Prophet that she has a major beef with the guy. As all the atrocities he’s committed allegedly in the name of God are revealed, I certainly couldn’t blame her for her animosity. She tries to be a good, obedient girl, but between her own bright mind and the things she’s learned from the reading materials in the bookmobile, she knows there’s something inherently wrong with being told to marry her own uncle. She also knows other things, too, such as the fact that there’s medical treatment that could help her mother who’s having a difficult pregnancy that’s left her sick all the time. Yet the Prophet has declared that modern medicine is of the devil and any woman who dies in childbirth is sinful. Kyra, like any girl her age, has started to notice boys and is sweet on one in particular, Joshua. He likes her, too, and they engage in a number of late-night rendezvouses in dark, quiet places around the compound where they share innocent kisses and make promises to each other that the Prophet makes impossible for them to keep. When the Prophet declares that Kyra is to marry her uncle, I admired her for fighting back even though she’s bombarded from all sides by people trying to “put her in her place” and eventually by being literally beaten down. Even though inside she’s incredibly frightened and sometimes uncertain about the course of action she’s taken, she simply doesn’t give up on forging her own destiny.
Since The Chosen One is classified as a YA novel, I’ll discuss potentially objectionable content in this paragraph. There are a handful of times that hell is used as a profanity, but no other language issues. There’s no drug or alcohol use. Although the term adultery is briefly discussed and Kyra thinks of how she can’t even stand the idea of her uncle touching her, there’s also no actual sexual content. So the most concerning things would be violence and an overarching sense of fear. There’s a feeling of suspense surrounding whether Kyra will ever be able to escape her fate, which eventually leads to some nail-biting moments that I can’t say too much about without giving away spoilers. Then there’s the violence, which overall isn’t rendered too graphically. It’s more the fear that leads to a psychological response. However, there is a scene where an infant is “disciplined” for crying in the presence of the Prophet, nearly leading to her death. There’s talk about murders that have taken place in the past, both of infants and girls, and the implication of a supporting character being killed in the story. There are other abuses, including Kyra herself being beaten, although after the first blow, it fades to black with the story taking up again afterward with the mention of all her injuries. There’s also the twisted nature of the things the cult believes and how the Prophet keeps everyone under his thumb, which can be rather disturbing. So while the thirteen-year-old age of the protagonist might draw the interest of middle-grade kids, I’m not entirely sure if they would be old enough to handle the subject matter given that this isn’t some fantasy world but one that really exists for some people. It would probably vary depending on the maturity of the child and whether they have parental or educator guidance available to help process it. That’s why I would only recommend the book for older teens who I believe would have the maturity level to handle the more realistic nature of the story.
Overall, The Chosen One was a great read. It’s by turns powerful, thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and anger-inducing. IMHO, the ability to elicit all of these emotions from the reader is the mark of good writing. Kyra is a strong, admirable heroine who eventually figures out that she must be her own hero no matter the cost. The Prophet and his God Squad made me want to jump into the story to give them a taste of their own medicine. Then there are Kyra’s family members, who drew a certain sympathy from me. Her father seems like a good man who genuinely loves his family, while her mothers are generally good people as well, particularly Kyra’s biological mother. Her siblings just try to please their parents, but I admired her sisters who share the same mother for standing up for her. On the one hand, I sometimes wanted to be angry with her parents for not doing more to protect her, but at the same time, it was obvious that deep down, they had some doubts of their own which they’d stuffed away. They’re simply a product of their upbringing, never knowing another life besides the cult compound, and they’ve had fear—fear of the Prophet, losing everything, and/or going to hell—instilled in them from a young age. So they’re stuck as well and perhaps unable to dredge up the courage Kyra has. The story is at times, tense and suspenseful, making me wonder if Kyra was going to find a way out. It was on track to receive five stars from me right up until the ending, which while hopeful, was a little too open-ended for my taste. I like everything wrapped up in a neat bow, but this one left me with many questions, which I’ll have to answer on my own in a way that will satisfy me. I begrudgingly admit that real life isn’t usually neat, so in that way, the book was sticking to it’s more realistic tone. Otherwise, it was an excellent read, my first by Carol Lynch Williams, but most certainly not my last. show less
Kyra and her family are so excited! The Prophet is coming to visit them tonight and they are sure it's good news. Maybe their dad has been chosen to become an apostle. The apostles have the best of everything because they are blessed, so sayeth Prophet Childs. Right now Kyra and her families live in three trailers on the outskirts of the compound. Did i mention that Kyra has 20 brothers and sisters? And 3 mothers? Yeah. They live in a polygamist society that is mostly cut off from the show more outside world. But please, read on, don't let that stop you.
It turns out that the person who was chosen is not her dad, but Kyra herself.
"In a light bright as the sun the revelation came," Prophet Childs says. He stares over our heads like he's seeing things all over again. "The two of you at the stone altar, wearing the ceremonial dress, Brother Hyrum standing, you kneeling at his feet. I saw it all. I saw it all. You have been saved for him."
She's been chosen to marry Hyrum! But at 14 she doesn't want to get married, especially not to her uncle! She wants to wait for Joshua. He's her age and over this past year they've learned so much about each other. And what about Patrick, on the Bookmobile? The Prophet and Uncle Hyrum promise riches and ease to the family when Kyra marries. But in the meantime, the family needs to be taught about discipline, especially the baby who cried when The Prophet was talking.
What choice does Kyra really have?
I can't tell you much about this book because the beauty is in the unfolding. I read a lot of this book aloud to my daughter and she would yell everytime I stopped (cause it's faster to read silently!). Finally she came over and started reading it with me.
Carol Lynch Williams creates a world so real, I could feel the tension in Kyra. What were we going to do? How could we possibly get anywhere? What about our family? I felt as if I had to make the same decisions as Kyra. The writing was clear and concise. It moved you along in the story to the only possible ending. I absolutely loved this book! I will be adding it to the school library and as a book club book in the fall. St. Martin's Press even included a great discussion guide! I give it 5 stars! show less
It turns out that the person who was chosen is not her dad, but Kyra herself.
"In a light bright as the sun the revelation came," Prophet Childs says. He stares over our heads like he's seeing things all over again. "The two of you at the stone altar, wearing the ceremonial dress, Brother Hyrum standing, you kneeling at his feet. I saw it all. I saw it all. You have been saved for him."
She's been chosen to marry Hyrum! But at 14 she doesn't want to get married, especially not to her uncle! She wants to wait for Joshua. He's her age and over this past year they've learned so much about each other. And what about Patrick, on the Bookmobile? The Prophet and Uncle Hyrum promise riches and ease to the family when Kyra marries. But in the meantime, the family needs to be taught about discipline, especially the baby who cried when The Prophet was talking.
What choice does Kyra really have?
I can't tell you much about this book because the beauty is in the unfolding. I read a lot of this book aloud to my daughter and she would yell everytime I stopped (cause it's faster to read silently!). Finally she came over and started reading it with me.
Carol Lynch Williams creates a world so real, I could feel the tension in Kyra. What were we going to do? How could we possibly get anywhere? What about our family? I felt as if I had to make the same decisions as Kyra. The writing was clear and concise. It moved you along in the story to the only possible ending. I absolutely loved this book! I will be adding it to the school library and as a book club book in the fall. St. Martin's Press even included a great discussion guide! I give it 5 stars! show less
The Scoop:
Kyra Leigh Carlson is almost 14 years old. Kyra loves books. Kyra is in love with Joshua. But those two loves don't matter because Kyra is one of The Chosen Ones. The Chosen Ones are a isolated, polygamous cult. And, Kyra, along with her 21 brothers and sisters, her three mothers, her father and everybody else in the Compound are under the rule of the Prophet Childs. Under his "reign," any book except the bible has been outlawed and removed from the Compound. It is also forbidden show more to be seen with, let alone touch or kiss, a sect member of the opposite sex. With her secretive trips to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels for contraband reading and her clandestine midnight meetings with 16-year-old Joshua, Kyra is already wallowing in the guilt of her sins. When her family is family is visited by the Prophet and his Apostles it is assumed that it is to announce that her father will become a new apostle for The Chosen Ones. They are all stunned, none more than Kyra, when the announcement is that Prophet Childs has had a vision and it is of Kyra becoming the seventh wife to her 60-plus-year-old uncle. With the books from the Mobile Library (like Harry Potter and Bridge to Terabithia) opening her eyes to a bigger world than what she experiences closed off in her compound and Joshua's love opening her heart to more possibilities in life as well as the abject horror and repulsion she feels at becoming a wife to her uncle, Kyra begins a struggle within herself on whether she should stay with the family she loves and the life that she knows or run from the horrible future ahead into something completely unknown.
My Thoughts:
Jenna Lamia hit just the right note as narrator for young Kyra (she is also the voice of Grace in Maggie Stiefvater's The Wolves of Mercy Falls series) with a sweet, almost innocence to her tone. She was also able to emote the intense feelings that Kyra had throughout the book--anger, astonishment, horror, outright fear, love and caring. I felt caught up in Kyra's life and plight the entire time I was listening to this book.
As for the story itself, Kyra was a wonderful character. She was mature for her age--mostly because she only got to be a child until the next baby in her family came along--and she wasn't afraid to reach for what she wanted. Even though she had been taught it was a sin to read anything outside of the bible she found the courage to sneak out of the compound and find Patrick and his mobile library which opened up a whole new world to her. And even though she knew it was a sin to be with Joshua--sneaking around, meeting after curfew and kissing--she met with him because it was a time she could have to herself and have the sole attention of one person who had high meaning to her. I can't imagine how she must have felt always surround by her many siblings and mothers and having to continuously help attend to her younger siblings. She did carve out a notch in one of the olive trees near her house to hide in and do her secretive reading in and I think that part is what stood out to me most--she had to cut away the thorns on the branches of the tree and hide her book in the tree to get some alone time.
Carol Lynch Williams wrote a very real sounding 13-year-old that was dealing with some very extraordinary circumstances. Knowing very little about the kind of life Kyra was living it was interesting to see the different ends of the spectrum of life in a isolated, uber-religious cult (from the loving family to the self-righteous and dictatorial leaders). And while I realize that it was all fictionalized I do know there were some aspects of truth to the life Kyra was living. The reason I know that and what really made the book just a little bit more special was the interview of Carol Lynch Williams after the book's conclusion. She discussed what pushed her to write the book and where she got the information. She said a lot of it came from news reports (like 20/20) and other research materials. She was able to get some first-hand insight from her sister (who was unwittingly almost part of a polygamous relationship), a member of their local community who had left a similar multiple marriage lifestyle and from a boyfriend of one of her daughters who was the son of a man who had multiple wives and had decided that lifestyle wasn't for him. While Lynch admitted that the boyfriend hadn't revealed a lot of information and wasn't very forthcoming about his life in a polygamous family she did say that his response to Kyra's story to her daughter was, "How did your mom know so much about my life?" For me, that was when the astonishment of what Kyra had to overcome to live a "normal" life became just a little bit more real than fictional. show less
Kyra Leigh Carlson is almost 14 years old. Kyra loves books. Kyra is in love with Joshua. But those two loves don't matter because Kyra is one of The Chosen Ones. The Chosen Ones are a isolated, polygamous cult. And, Kyra, along with her 21 brothers and sisters, her three mothers, her father and everybody else in the Compound are under the rule of the Prophet Childs. Under his "reign," any book except the bible has been outlawed and removed from the Compound. It is also forbidden show more to be seen with, let alone touch or kiss, a sect member of the opposite sex. With her secretive trips to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels for contraband reading and her clandestine midnight meetings with 16-year-old Joshua, Kyra is already wallowing in the guilt of her sins. When her family is family is visited by the Prophet and his Apostles it is assumed that it is to announce that her father will become a new apostle for The Chosen Ones. They are all stunned, none more than Kyra, when the announcement is that Prophet Childs has had a vision and it is of Kyra becoming the seventh wife to her 60-plus-year-old uncle. With the books from the Mobile Library (like Harry Potter and Bridge to Terabithia) opening her eyes to a bigger world than what she experiences closed off in her compound and Joshua's love opening her heart to more possibilities in life as well as the abject horror and repulsion she feels at becoming a wife to her uncle, Kyra begins a struggle within herself on whether she should stay with the family she loves and the life that she knows or run from the horrible future ahead into something completely unknown.
My Thoughts:
Jenna Lamia hit just the right note as narrator for young Kyra (she is also the voice of Grace in Maggie Stiefvater's The Wolves of Mercy Falls series) with a sweet, almost innocence to her tone. She was also able to emote the intense feelings that Kyra had throughout the book--anger, astonishment, horror, outright fear, love and caring. I felt caught up in Kyra's life and plight the entire time I was listening to this book.
As for the story itself, Kyra was a wonderful character. She was mature for her age--mostly because she only got to be a child until the next baby in her family came along--and she wasn't afraid to reach for what she wanted. Even though she had been taught it was a sin to read anything outside of the bible she found the courage to sneak out of the compound and find Patrick and his mobile library which opened up a whole new world to her. And even though she knew it was a sin to be with Joshua--sneaking around, meeting after curfew and kissing--she met with him because it was a time she could have to herself and have the sole attention of one person who had high meaning to her. I can't imagine how she must have felt always surround by her many siblings and mothers and having to continuously help attend to her younger siblings. She did carve out a notch in one of the olive trees near her house to hide in and do her secretive reading in and I think that part is what stood out to me most--she had to cut away the thorns on the branches of the tree and hide her book in the tree to get some alone time.
Carol Lynch Williams wrote a very real sounding 13-year-old that was dealing with some very extraordinary circumstances. Knowing very little about the kind of life Kyra was living it was interesting to see the different ends of the spectrum of life in a isolated, uber-religious cult (from the loving family to the self-righteous and dictatorial leaders). And while I realize that it was all fictionalized I do know there were some aspects of truth to the life Kyra was living. The reason I know that and what really made the book just a little bit more special was the interview of Carol Lynch Williams after the book's conclusion. She discussed what pushed her to write the book and where she got the information. She said a lot of it came from news reports (like 20/20) and other research materials. She was able to get some first-hand insight from her sister (who was unwittingly almost part of a polygamous relationship), a member of their local community who had left a similar multiple marriage lifestyle and from a boyfriend of one of her daughters who was the son of a man who had multiple wives and had decided that lifestyle wasn't for him. While Lynch admitted that the boyfriend hadn't revealed a lot of information and wasn't very forthcoming about his life in a polygamous family she did say that his response to Kyra's story to her daughter was, "How did your mom know so much about my life?" For me, that was when the astonishment of what Kyra had to overcome to live a "normal" life became just a little bit more real than fictional. show less
Told in verse, thirteen year old Lizzie is devastated when her older sister Hope attempts suicide and is hospitalized, and somewhere inside her Lizzie is certain she knows the reason behind her sister’s altered mental state, but is she prepared to face it?
I think most readers will figure out Hope’s devastating secret before Lizzie does, there’s still a great deal of suspense though in wondering when Lizzie will put together the pieces, and what, if anything she’d do about it.
This is show more not the happiest of stories, it’s upsetting and awful, your heart will hurt for these girls, it’s tough to read stuff like this, it’s tough to be reminded that this doesn’t just happen in fiction, so this is definitely not a book to turn to if you’re looking for something uplifting, but if you’re braced for the content, for feeling angry and sad, it’s truly well-written, emotional reading experience, with a tender, protective connection between the sisters. show less
I think most readers will figure out Hope’s devastating secret before Lizzie does, there’s still a great deal of suspense though in wondering when Lizzie will put together the pieces, and what, if anything she’d do about it.
This is show more not the happiest of stories, it’s upsetting and awful, your heart will hurt for these girls, it’s tough to read stuff like this, it’s tough to be reminded that this doesn’t just happen in fiction, so this is definitely not a book to turn to if you’re looking for something uplifting, but if you’re braced for the content, for feeling angry and sad, it’s truly well-written, emotional reading experience, with a tender, protective connection between the sisters. show less
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