UnChosen by Katharyn Blair (spoilers in review)

For Charlotte Holloway, the world ended twice.

The first was when her childhood crush, Dean, fell in love—with her older sister.

The second was when the Crimson, a curse spread through eye contact, turned the majority of humanity into flesh-eating monsters.

Neither end of the world changed Charlotte. She’s still in the shadows of her siblings. Her popular older sister, Harlow, now commands forces of survivors. And her talented younger sister, Vanessa, is the Chosen One—who, legend has it, can end the curse.

When their settlement is raided by those seeking the Chosen One, Charlotte makes a reckless decision to save Vanessa: she takes her place as prisoner.

The word spreads across the seven seas—the Chosen One has been found.

But when Dean’s life is threatened and a resistance looms on the horizon, the lie keeping Charlotte alive begins to unravel. She’ll have to break free, forge new bonds, and choose her own destiny if she has any hope of saving her sisters, her love, and maybe even the world.

Because sometimes the end is just a new beginning.

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The blurb for this really intrigued me. I was hoping for something like a mix between Birdbox and Patrick Ness's The Rest of Us Just Live Here. That novel is genuinely about the unchosen, with the Chosen One story playing out in the background. This one is more of a 'But I can't be the Chosen O - Oh, I am? Alright then.'

Don't get me wrong; this is a good story, with well thought out and explained perils and interesting characters. It's sad that the version I got was badly edited, with whole sentences missing that rendered things nonsensical. At first I thought I just wasn't following, but no, things just don't make sense sometimes. Here's an example:

Seth’s grin freezes, and a deadly, killing calm sweeps through the cell. “There are a thousand reasons to kill you, Maddox. But mention Evelyn again and I’ll only need one.”

Maddox raises the gun. “And our repartee was going so well.”

“Go!” I scream as I scramble for the cell door. Seth shoves himself up. We barrel down the hallway just as the door bursts open, and Maddox’s crew spills inside. I hear the metallic click and brace myself for the gunshot, but it doesn’t come. Maddox swears loudly, and it sounds like a strangled growl.

I'm fairly sure something should have happened between Maddox raising her gun and Charlotte screaming Go, something that explains why Seth is on the floor and why Maddox isn't a danger anymore, but it's just missing. However, hopefully I got a bad copy and the proper version will be fine.

I did enjoy this, there's a lot of fun in it and the characters are great. The story is clever and had a few surprises. I just hope it's properly rendered when it goes on sale. It deserves to do well.

Unchosen publishes on the 26th of January, 2021.