Review: Chosen Ones

Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls #1)
by Tiffany Truitt
Published June 12th 2012
Entangled Publishing, LLC

Summary from Goodreads:

What if you were mankind’s last chance at survival?

Sixteen-year-old Tess lives in a compound in what was once the Western United States, now decimated after a devastating fourth World War. But long before that, life as we knew it had been irrevocably changed, as women mysteriously lost the ability to bring forth life. Faced with the extinction of the human race, the government began the Council of Creators, meant to search out alternative methods of creating life. The resulting artificial human beings, or Chosen Ones, were extraordinarily beautiful, unbelievably strong, and unabashedly deadly.

Life is bleak, but uncomplicated for Tess as she follows the rigid rules of her dystopian society, until the day she begins work at Templeton, the training facility for newly created Chosen Ones. There, she meets James, a Chosen One whose odd love of music and reading rivals only her own. The attraction between the two is immediate in its intensity—and overwhelming in its danger.

But there is more to the goings-on at Templeton than Tess ever knew, and as the veil is lifted from her eyes, she uncovers a dark underground movement bent not on taking down the Chosen Ones, but the Council itself. Will Tess be able to stand up to those who would oppress her, even if it means giving up the only happiness in her life?

Thoughts:
I'm still very much on the fence on whether I'm a fan of the dystopian genre. Undoubtedly there are some dystopian books that I have enjoyed very much but most of it just goes into my mediocre or some people might called it meh pile. And sadly Chosen Ones qualifies for that pile.

The story is a confusing tale where humans in Western United States were forced to live in restricted compounds governed by the mysterious and shadowy Council who decided to cloned humans in a large scale so they can be shipped off to fight against the Eastern powers as super soldiers. Tess unwittingly was sent to serve at one of the facility where these clones or Chosens are bred and raised as a punishment for her sister's transgression and  found herself falling for one of the them.

Super soldiers? Umm....

Such forbidden romance could be tragic or even beautiful but in this case I was severely turn off by all the violence and vile treatment against the women in this book. In Tess future world, the infertility rate has gone up and giving birth would ultimately lead to death. So the Naturals (normal humans) are forbidden from having a sexual relationship or even have feelings towards the opposite sex. But the Chosen are all males and   highly aggressive since they are trained for battle. Certain events occurred which made me cringe while reading this and it took Tess a long time to finally accept the truth and worked against it.

Recommended for: fans of Under the Never Sky
Verdict: 2 stars.

In my Debut Author Reading Challenge 
Available on: Amazon