The Chosen One – Books and Literature

Review of the book “The Chosen One”, by Taran Matharu

Our history is full of inexplicable events and blank spaces. Over time, strange disappearances have occurred and, many of them, have been part of historical enigmas. Shipwrecked ships, missing battalions, people who have never been found… What if the same thing happened to us? What if, one day, we abandoned the reality we know and appeared in another reality, ignored by everyone?

The same thing happens to Cade, the protagonist of The chosen one. He and his boarding schoolmates are transported, or rather, torn from his universe and put to the test in the prelude to an intriguing grand battle royale that will extend throughout an entire saga.

Cade is a history-loving boy who is accused of a crime at his previous high school. This leads him to be admitted to an institution for problematic young people where he is not well received due to his ethnic origins and in which he tries to keep a low profile. Until, one day, he appears in the middle of a desert crater at the mercy of strange creatures. He and other boarding schoolmates travel through canyons, jungles and riverbanks populated by beasts from the past and find historical settlements where they meet people missing from history, in an alien world that seems to be made up of pieces from other eras. Some of these people are allies, others a danger, but the greatest danger of all is the test they have to undergo, the so-called qualification round.

Soon, it becomes clear that someone has brought them to this strange place and expects them to overcome a deadly competition. And that’s just the beginning. The chosen one It is only the first step of the feat that the trilogy of The contender.

The adventures of Cade Carter are a fast-paced story, but they are also a chronicle of maturity. Cade must learn to trust himself and others, make decisions, make sacrifices, and manage guilt and loss. As the boy grows, the adventure becomes harder and more self-aware, until it leads us to reflect on the importance of change, both in the life of an individual and in the history of humanity. Through the mysterious antagonists of this story, we will learn about the toll that the eternal could have on minds and hearts. All this, almost without intending it, since Matharu seems to only tell a fantastic adventure, but the astute reader will soon realize that it is much more than that and that, in the following volumes, it promises to evolve along those lines, spinning a story with still more substance than the initial premise may imply.

Taran Matharu was a revelation since, during the 2013 NaNoWriMo, he illuminated the trilogy of The legend of the sorcerer, which garnered excitement on Wattpad. Taran has continued with his literary journey, building a new familiar world, as well as foreign, in this new saga. The chosen one It is the first volume and it is presented to us in an attractive pocket format with an impeccable design, something that the Umbriel publishing house has already accustomed us to.

For those looking for agile fantasy stories, full of adventure and improvement and seasoned with historical curiosities, you will find in The chosen one and, probably, in the rest of the saga of The contendera dish of your taste.