What are you? Who are you? I have never met a chosen like you in my entire existence. You are everything that is free. you are freedom. And I... I'm the bird trapped in the cage, watching you fly away. But then, you look back at me, you always look back, and you reach through the bars and offer your hand to me. Though I am nothing, though I am just a heartless creature, you still offer me your hand.

3.5 Stars
The Chosen Saga is off to a good start with this book. It started off very quickly, too quickly. Honestly, after reading the first chapter of this book, I put it away for a while, it totally turned me off. Eventually though, I did come back to it and I'm glad that I did.

Leonie is a teenage girl living a normal, if not lonely, life, until one day everything changes. She finds out that she is Chosen, a magical kind of being that comes from a different dimension. Not only is she a Chosen, she's a Pulsar, the most powerful of all the Chosen, and the first Pulsar to be born in 200 years. This is a lot of responsibility for anyone, but especially for someone who had no idea what she was.
While at first she's excited to learn about magic and about a whole world she didn't know existed, she quickly learns that this new world is full of bigotry and hypocrisy. While there is beauty, there is also evil.

My favorite thing about this book was the friendship between Leonie and Korren. Korren is leonies Kytaen guard, an 'animal' that is meant to be treated more as an object than anything else. Leonie is rightfully offended by this when she meets Korren and sees that he is just as sentient as she is. He is full of hatred and anger towards the chosen, and can't understand why Leonie would bother to treat him as an equal, but she's determined to become his friend and its really heartwarming.

One thing I didn't like about this book is how self hating Leonie is. Most of her internal dialogue is her believing that she isn't good enough, that there must be some mistake. That's something I see a lot in female heroes and it's pretty dis-empowering. Towards the end of the book she does start to believe in herself more, so I am giving this book a rating of 3.5 stars. I'm excited to see what's in store for Leonie and Korren in future books.

**Thanks to Netgalley for providing an advanced copy of this book*