Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen [Mass Market Paperback]

Nancy Holder (Author), Joss Whedon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2003

BIGGEST BADDEST BUFFY OF THEM ALL

The First has come to Sunnydale and set its sights on taking down the Slayer. On the side of the White Hats: Buffy, Xander, Willow, Anya, Dawn, Giles, Spike, Faith, Angel, and an assortment of young, innocent, untried Potentials.

In this season-spanning storyline, Buffy Summers will learn about the primeval origins of her own strength, and have the opportunity to train those would succeed her. And as the forces of evil find their way back to the Hellmouth -- where it all began -- the Slayer will uncover what being the Chosen One is all about: Power.

"She's laid down her life -- literally -- to protect the people around her. This girl has died, two times, and she's still standing. You're scared, that's smart. You got questions, you should. But you doubt her motive, you think Buffy is about the kill...then you take the little bus to battle. I've see her heart -- this time not literally -- and I'll tell you right now she cares more about your lives than you will ever know. You gotta trust her. She's earned it." -- Xander, "Dirty Girls"

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 688 pages
• Publisher: Simon Pulse (June 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0689866259
• ISBN-13: 978-0689866258
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.8 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,960,463 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good stories, lousy copy editing., May 22, 2003

By 

Marissa Stroud "ficangel" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen (Mass Market Paperback)

The story this book tells, believe it or not, is actually better than the one that we were presented on the screen this season. Read all at once, S7's major themes are presented in much sharper focus. Spike's martyrdom and Xander's eye are foreshadowed as early as the fourth and fifth episodes, and whoever did the ghostwriting on this did a fine job of sympathizing Buffy's internal monologue while the rest of us were screaming a word that begins with "B" and does not end with "uffy" at the screen. No, the reason this book loses two stars is a much stupider, lazier reason. It doesn't appear that anyone bothered to copyedit this book at all. It's rife with typos from start to finish, and while many of them stop at being simply annoying, there are several that are so bad that they interfere with understanding the book. For example, every time that the words 'the first' are used, they are capitalized, regardless of whether it refers to the Big Bad or not. There is one instance where the writer was referring to the first Sunnydale High School that I had to read five times to understand. It's terrible to see a good book brought low because of an impatient lack of effort.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Story but Sloppily Done, June 3, 2003

By 

"zawombat" (Aurora, Colorado United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen (Mass Market Paperback)

Being a watcher of the show and a reader of the Buffy books, I was eagerly anticipating the release of this book - WOW an entire season in one novel!! I went to the store, picked it up, and started reading when I got home. I thought the story was great; I couldn't put it down - But then I started noticing the continuous gramatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. After the first I was like, "Well, the editor missed that one." I think I lost count of the errors by page 50 (of the nearly 700 pages)!! While I totally enjoyed the story of the Seventh Season of Buffy, the errors kept annoying me. There was one instance where the book leaves out an entire line of dialogue and at one point there was an entire paragraph where every single sentence had some type of error. So, while I would recommend this to anyone, be warned that the publisher obviously forgot to have an editor read it first.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars More Like an Episode Guide than a Novel, May 28, 2003

By 

Amanda (Maine) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chosen (Mass Market Paperback)

The author of 'Chosen' had the easiest writing assignment in the world: copy dialogue verbatim from each of the 22 episodes of the seventh season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", add in some non-dialogue sentences, including such phrases as *she said* and *he said*, then get it published. The result is this 668 page novel that feels more like a seventh-season summary than an actual novel.

My first complaint is that the novel feels rushed. Obviously, they wanted it to get to stores at around the same time as the series finale aired, so maybe that accounts for the numerous grammatical and spelling errors, and the occasional absence of quotation marks where there should be some. But even if that is an excuse, there is nothing more annoying than reading a published book that was supposed to have gone through an editor before being published. These mistakes should not have been left in.

My second complaint is this: I knew this was going to be a young adult novel, like pretty much all of the "Buffy" novelizations, but I just felt like no effort at all was put into it to make it readable even by 13-17-year-olds, let alone us older "Buffy" fans who are no longer teeny-boppers. Using such words as "kissage" and telling us that "Kennedy licked Willow with her pierced tongue" produced major gagging spells, and many rollings of the eyes. Come on. I've read a couple other "Buffy" novels, and they are not nearly this bad. Of course, the other novels are based on original ideas, not on actual episodes. As for being based on the entire seventh season, all 22 episodes together would equal more than 668 pages (with fairly large print, too), so some things are left out, and all the rest is so rushed that it barely feels like anything important is happening.

In my opinion, the final season of "Buffy" was superb. That season alone would definitely get 5 stars. But this book only touches the surface. If you saw all 22 episodes for free on your TV, you do not need to read the book. 'Chosen' is basically just a summary, or overview, of the season as a whole. But if you can remember most of the things that happened this season, you do not need the summary of it. If you would like to know what happened in a certain episode, I would suggest waiting for another "Buffy" guide to come out in the future that will give an episode guide of seasons 1-7. You don't need to waste your time on this poorly written novel. If you feel you must read something Buffy, try any of the novelizations NOT based on an episode, or try going to a "Buffy" fanfic site. But please, save your money on this one.