The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Summary:

Thirteen-year-old Kyra has grown up in an isolated community without questioning the fact that her father has three wives and she has twenty brothers and sisters, with two more on the way. That is, without questioning them much---if you don’t count her secret visits to the Mobile Library on Wheels to read forbidden books, or her meetings with Joshua, the boy she hopes to choose for herself instead of having a man chosen for her.

But when the Prophet decrees that she must marry her sixty-year-old uncle---who already has six wives---Kyra must make a desperate choice in the face of violence and her own fears of losing her family forever.
Summary taken from Goodreads.com

The reason I decided to give this book a chance is all because I read this review >>Click here for the review that started it all << Normally I wouldn't have picked this one up but I liked her review so much I had to.

I really enjoyed the book which I read in all of 2 hours  yesterday afternoon while waiting for my better half to come crawling in the door after a hard day at work. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon I must say. I liked the author's style of writing a lot.

Kyra the main character was so strong willed it was nice to see given the enviornment she group up in.  She's a 13 (almost 14) year old girl who is being raised in a polygamist compound where the men wield the power and the women are subservient. Kyra's own father has 3 wives her mother being the youngest of these who ,arried her father when she was just 14 years old.

Kyra is the oldest of her mothers children and thus has taken over many of the duties that were once her mothers because her mother is pregnant and bed ridden like she always is during pregnancy. Kyra despite being raised in this enviornment shares a deep love with her family even though she knows that she is disobeying the rules by reading books brought to her by the mobile library and sneaking around with the boy she wants  for herself.

Faced by a horrible future Kyra starts thinking of ways to escape and make her future her own. The author has made Kyra a brave girl who shows her strength in the face of adversity and her character will stay with you for a long time I hope.

I highly recommend this one!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★