The Choosing

     I think I read Rachelle Dekker's first novel a lot more critically than I usually would for any other author off the shelf. She's the daughter of my favourite Christian Fiction author. I expect great things from her.

     In The Choosing I did find that unique blend of spiritual and physical turmoil that Ted Dekker always captures me with, and some of the inner issues have similarities, but Rachelle's writing voice is still very distinct from her father's. Not to mention her setting and characters.

     She introduces a post-apocalyptic world that made me reminisce The Hunger Games and Divergent series, but with a different kind of a twist: a heavily patriarchal society, wherein a woman's worth is determined by the man that Chooses her in the Choosing ceremony that is held every year for those of age. Children go through lessons and classes all through childhood and into early adulthood, all with the purpose of being chosen. And those that are not fade into society as labour workers with little worth and no more than a fixed schedule of tasks to their name.

     Dekker follows Carrington, a young girl of decent social standing with all of the traits for being Chosen, but when it comes to the ceremony she's left behind, along with the rest of the worthless members of society. She can find no clear reason why she failed. The Choosing is about her transition into life as a Lint worker, cut off from her family and all that she grew up knowing, and her journey to discovering true worth.

     --Elise--

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