Chandra Hoffman

Part romance, part thriller, all can’t put it down reading. Juliet and Dean have found their way to a summer in The Cayman Islands for very different reasons. Both are still trying to deal with the death of their respective spouses and trying to make a life for their children in the aftermath.

The first thing to stick in the reader’s mind is the visceral sensation of the air in the islands. Hot and sticky, mistaken for the jet exhaust. Though this is a place one generally associates with show more happy carefree tourists, it is obvious that this story is going to be somewhat dark and heavy. The islands’ local color and weather remain an integral part of the story right up through the end.

Juliet and Dean are the main characters as they navigate a bond that starts with friendly-like neighbors and finds its way through friendship and the landmines of romance and the outside influences that would break them apart. Each brilliant character, from the youngest child to the elderly neighbors, adds a necessary piece to the puzzle. There is no filler as the story unfolds with its many mysteries and secrets. As the book progresses there are more questions than answers until the end when it all falls together with a breathless aha moment.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
I received an advance review copy through The Review Crew for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. show less

I should be the perfect reader for this book. I’ve been up and down the infertility and adoption roller coasters. I spent five years of my life trying to “have our baby, cross the finish line, and be out of this psychotic parallel universe,” as one of the main characters puts it.

And yet as much as I should have identified with the characters in “Chosen”, after about the first third of the book, I began to actively dislike all of them except the adoption caseworker. The reader is show more allowed limited access to the thoughts of most of the main characters…birth parents, adoptive parents, etc. and through this, learns a bit too much. Either the author was a bit unsure of who her characters were or these people as a group are really off balance. The men, especially, go between being sensitive and emotional to violent and incredibly crude. (I am not easily shocked but there were several passages when the reader is in a male point of view that turned my stomach.) I don’t think, given the genre, that this is what the author was trying for so I am surprised that those weren’t edited out.

Again, I’ve been where these people are. I know the emotional roller coaster that hope, grief, joy and despair can create. I know how soul crushing the process can be. And yet I found myself nearing the end of the book hoping that none of them would end up as parents. A new father, whose life is unlike anything he expected, true, thinking, “Right now the baby feels like a money-gobbling parasite…Of course he knows it won’t always be like this, that Wyeth will start to give back in some way, be more than a drain on their energy and finances.” At another point, two of the main male characters imagine killing the women in their lives in horrific ways.

Another thing I couldn’t figure out was why, after a baby goes missing, the reader doesn’t get anything from the mother’s point of view. She is shuffled to the sidelines and the reader is forced to guess as her feelings and emotions after losing the baby she’s tried so long to have. The one person closest to the situation and the reader is cut off from her.

I’ve looked over this review a few times, unsure if it was one I should post. But this subject of wanting a child, trying desperately to have a child and the fragile feelings one has while on any side of the adoption triangle is close to my heart. I think the author had good intentions when writing “Chosen” – I think her goal was to show that no one involved in the process is all good or all bad – completely unselfish or totally greedy. I just feel like this was an opportunity missed. show less

There was so much I liked about this book, but the combination of characters just got to be too much...There was some interesting insight and reflection on the world of domestic infant adoption, and I really liked that we had the perspectives of birth parents, adoptive parents and a social worker.The problem I had with this book was that the characters were all a little larger than life. I believe that there are people in real life like each and every person in this book, but it felt a show more little crowded in there with all of these strong personalities. One birth mother is an angelically sweet woman, relinquishing her baby so she can better take care of her toddler. The other is a conflicted young woman, giving into pressure from her scum-ball of a boyfriend to give up their baby.The adoptive mother to be is an obsessed woman that spends all her time on Internet adoption sites, the adoptive father a workaholic absent from most of the story.I think that Chloe was supposed to be the person the reader could identify with, but her engagement to an unemployed extreme sports aficionado and her attraction to one of her ex-clients pushed her over the edge for me.The issues they all encounter are real, and the stories are interesting. I think I would have liked it better if it was a little less dramatic. show less

I wanted to love this book. As an adoptive mother to a beautiful 8 year old daughter, I was very curious to see what Chandra Hoffman, once a social worker working in adoption, had to say. In no way was I expecting a fairy tale about adoption. I know all to well how controversial adoption can be. I was someone active in the adoption blogging world after Emma was born. There are people whose lives are made whole through adoption. There are others whose worlds are torn apart. I always show more recognized that my joy came at a large price for a beautiful young woman and her family. Unfortunately, my deep desire to enjoy this book was not enough.

Chosen tells the story of an adoption through the eyes of Chloe Pinter, the adoption case worker who was responsible for both the birth parents and the potential adoptive family. Her long hours of emotionally draining work and low pay created tension between her and her live-in boyfriend. It became increasingly difficult for her to balance her life with her job just as a disastrous adoption was ready to take place.

I could not stomach the main sets of adoptive and birth parents in Chosen. They felt more like characters put in place of stereotypical ideas/nightmares about each type of parent. There is much more to adoptive parents, especially mothers, than desperation over parenthood. Likewise, birth parents are in a difficult situation, that doesn't make them opportunists. I can only speak from my own experience, but adoption is not a made-for-TV-movie event. The desperate bitch adoptive mother and the morally bankrupt opportunistic birth parents are as cliched as the woman giving birth on a stuck elevator or in a cab on the way to the hospital.

On top of my issues with the characters, the ending did not in any work for me. I don't want to provide any spoilers in this review, but suffice to say this was probably the worst ending for me than any other book this year. I hate to sound harsh, but there was just no way I could buy into it.

I did find this novel a great way to initiate conversation about the language of adoption. Until you become intimate with it, you think nothing of saying that children were "given up" for adoption or identifying the biological parents of an adopted child his/her "real parents." They imply that birth parents give no thought to their decisions and that adoptive relationships aren't real. Nothing can be further from the truth.

I wish I could recommend Chosen despite my reservations. I cannot. I don't believe a book has to be accurate or politically correct to be good (God knows there is nothing I hate more than reading an uptight politically correct book). In that case, the book needs to be believable on its own level. Failing that, it must be entertaining. This book just didn't cut it for me. show less