Los Angeles Times
Unbearable tension. . . . Chandra Hoffman’s unflinching and suspense-filled account of the pleasures and perils of domestic adoption . . . is a wrenching portrait.
Leonard Chang
In one of the most self-assured debuts I’ve read, Chosen takes the charged and important issue of adoption and spins it into a gripping story that will keep readers captivated. Chandra Hoffman, a superb artist and storyteller, has written a beautiful and compelling novel.
Liza Gyllenhaal
With sensitivity and keen insight, Chandra Hoffman’s absorbing first novel Chosen explores the demanding, uplifting, and emotionally explosive world of adoption. Touching, immediately involving, as well as propulsively readable, Chosen heralds a powerful and distinctive new voice in contemporary women’s fiction.
Therese Fowler
Chandra Hoffman’s Chosen is a finely tuned page-turner. . . . There is no perfect happiness here; instead, there is the unexpected grace of discovering that getting what we want is so often less ideal than wanting what we get. This is an outstanding debut.
Juliette Fay
Gritty and suspenseful, Chosen draws us into the obstacle-strewn path of domestic adoption. Hoffman’s characters are complex and sympathetic in strikingly different ways, even those who appear at first glance to be irredeemable.
Ann Hood
This riveting debut novel from Chandra Hoffman will keep you on edge until its final glorious pages. Enlightening, terrifying, and big-hearted, Chosen is a terrific book!
Booklist
[Hoffman’s] sparkling debut fully engages the reader with Chloe’s altruistic dreams and the predicament in which she unexpectedly finds herself.
USA Today
A shocking ending.
Kirkus Reviews
Gripping tale of an open adoption that spurs a kidnapping, from debut novelist Hoffman.
Chloe Pinter thinks she's found her ideal job: caseworker for Chosen Child, a private agency that matches impoverished birth mothers with upper-middle-class, often middle-aged infertile couples longing for a child to nurture. Chosen Child arranges lodging and medical care for the mothers, and supports them for six weeks after they've delivered their children into the hands of the adoptive parents. Jason, the ex-con boyfriend of Penny, also an ex-con scarred by meth use and a horrific rape, is ambivalent about giving up his and Penny's child to Silicon Valley retiree John and his brittle wife Francie, mainly because the payment won't be enough to realize Jason's dream of escaping dreary, overgentrified Portland, Ore., to live in Mexico. Worse, when Penny gives birth to son Buddy (renamed Angus by John and Francie), she lapses into severe post-partum depression complicated by grief. Jason blames Chloe for his predicament, wrongly assuming that she is benefiting financially from the adoption. Chloe has her own relationship woes: Her fiancé Dan, an extreme sports nut, is not ready to settle down in Chloe's bungalow on the fringes of one of Portland's tony neighborhoods. He heads off to Maui to start a kite-boarding business, daring Chloe to follow. Meanwhile, Chloe finds herself dangerously attracted to former client Paul, who, with wife Eva, considered adoption before Eva gave birth to their son Wyeth. Exhausted and sleep-deprived from the unexpected 24/7 schedule of newborn care, Eva momentarily leaves Wyeth unattended in her car. Through a set of coincidences that Hoffman manages to render believable, Jason snatches Wyeth thinking he is Buddy, and the action accelerates. Although it takes too long for the major players (Chloe and Francie have both been threatened by Jason) to connect the dots, the strong descriptions of these driven characters trump occasional lapses in plot logic.
Despite a distressing number of dangling modifiers and comma splices, a heartfelt story well told.
