The hype hasn’t totally died down, but the past 20 years were kind of a golden age for the “chosen one” trope in YA fiction. We got to meet so many characters who were kind of living our dreams (and nightmares)—traveling far and wide to save the fate of the world, and maybe falling in love with someone along the way.
A lot of these books made it to the big screen, exposing these stories to new readers. In fact, it’s safe to say a lot of people found their love for reading in a book about a chosen one. It’s always fun to return to your roots and remember the characters and worlds and lines that sparked that love for literature, so indulge us on this trip down memory lane, with some newer must-reads sprinkled in—maybe you’ll be reminded of an old favorite, and maybe you’ll find a new one that you never got the chance to check out. It’s never too late!
22 of Our Favorite Chosen One Books of the Last 20 Years
IT’S DESTINY
1. Infinity Son by Adam Silvera
Everyone knows New York City is a magical place, but few imagine it and encapsulate it the way Adam Silvera does in Infinity Son, which weaves personal stories about sibling rivalry with action-packed, high stakes conflict.
📚 This is the first book in: the Infinity Cycle
Growing up in New York, brothers Emil and Brighton always idolized the Spell Walkers—a vigilante group sworn to rid the world of specters. While the Spell Walkers and other celestials are born with powers, specters take them, violently stealing the essence of endangered magical creatures.
Brighton wishes he had a power so he could join the fray. Emil just wants the fighting to stop. The cycle of violence has taken a toll, making it harder for anyone with a power to live peacefully and openly. In this climate of fear, a gang of specters has been growing bolder by the day.
Then, in a brawl after a protest, Emil manifests a power of his own—one that puts him right at the heart of the conflict and sets him up to be the heroic Spell Walker Brighton always wanted to be.
Brotherhood, love, and loyalty will be put to the test, and no one will escape the fight unscathed.
2. The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
This wouldn’t be a chosen one list without a mention of the one and only, Percy Jackson, the Lightning Thief. Inspired by Greek mythology (his dad is Poseidon, God of the sea and storms, after all), Percy is as “chosen” as they come. Bonus: the movie adaptation stars everyone’s fave, Logan Lerman, of YA-fiction adaptation greatness.
📚 This is the first book in: the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series
Percy Jackson is a good kid, but he can’t seem to focus on his schoolwork or control his temper. And lately, being away at boarding school is only getting worse – Percy could have sworn his pre-algebra teacher turned into a monster and tried to kill him. When Percy’s mom finds out, she knows it’s time that he knew the truth about where he came from, and that he go to the one place he’ll be safe. She sends Percy to Camp Half Blood, a summer camp for demigods (on Long Island), where he learns that the father he never knew is Poseidon, God of the Sea. Soon a mystery unfolds and together with his friends—one a satyr and the other the demigod daughter of Athena – Percy sets out on a quest across the United States to reach the gates of the Underworld (located in a recording studio in Hollywood) and prevent a catastrophic war between the gods.
3. Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The first book of the Seraphina series is an enrapturing tale with all the elements a fantasy fan could ask for: royals, dragons, and deadly secrets.
📚 This is the first book in: the Seraphina series
Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.
Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.
4. The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare
From powerhouse YA icons, Holly Black and Cassandra Clare, this co-written series defies everything you think you know about the world of magic.
📚 This is the first book in: the Magisterium series
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial. Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail. All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him. So he tries his best to do his worst — and fails at failing. Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future. The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come…
5. Legendborn by Tracy Deonn
Legendborn has it all—mystery, intrigue, an intricate magic system—AND it stars Bree Matthews, the heroine we’re all rooting for.
📚 This is the first book in: the Legendborn series
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
6. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
The first book in The Mortal Instruments series is an intoxicating introduction to the secret world of the Shadowhunters. The NYC setting brings the vibrant worldbuilding alive, grounding readers with one foot in reality and one foot in fantasy—much like the main character, Clary Fray.
📚 This is the first book in: The Mortal Instruments
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder― much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing―not even a smear of blood―to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…
7. The Gilded Ones by Namina Forna
In this world, girls are outcasts by blood and warriors by choice, and Namina Forna does a brilliant job of crafting an unflinching fantasy world with fleshed out, fully formed characters, like our heroine, Deka.
📚 This is the first book in: the Deathless series
Sixteen-year-old Deka lives in fear and anticipation of the blood ceremony that will determine whether she will become a member of her village. Already different from everyone else because of her unnatural intuition, Deka prays for red blood so she can finally feel like she belongs.
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity—and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.
Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki—near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire’s greatest threat.
Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be—not even Deka herself.
8. Burn by Patrick Ness
A unique story with a diverse cast, Burn introduces fantastical themes into the real world, while staying true to the hard truth of American history, all while taking the reader through a long and dizzying rabbit hole of twists and turns.
Sarah Dewhurst and her father, outcasts in their little town of Frome, Washington, are forced to hire a dragon to work their farm, something only the poorest of the poor ever have to resort to.
The dragon, Kazimir, has more to him than meets the eye, though. Sarah can’t help but be curious about him, an animal who supposedly doesn’t have a soul, but who is seemingly intent on keeping her safe.
Because the dragon knows something she doesn’t. He has arrived at the farm with a prophecy on his mind. A prophecy that involves a deadly assassin, a cult of dragon worshippers, two FBI agents in hot pursuit—and somehow, Sarah Dewhurst herself.
9. Witchlanders by Lena Coakley
In Witchlanders, readers, along with the protagonist, are asked to suspend disbelief. This dual-POV chosen one story is touching, surprising, and offers a refreshing take on the idea of soulmates.
High in their mountain covens, red witches pray to the Goddess, protecting the Witchlands by throwing the bones and foretelling the future.
It’s all a fake.
At least, that’s what Ryder thinks. He doubts the witches really deserve their tithes—one quarter of all the crops his village can produce. And even if they can predict the future, what danger is there to foretell, now that his people’s old enemy, the Baen, has been defeated?
But when a terrifying new magic threatens both his village and the coven, Ryder must confront the beautiful and silent witch who holds all the secrets. Everything he’s ever believed about witches, the Baen, magic and about himself will change, when he discovers that the prophecies he’s always scorned—
Are about him.
10. The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Smart, thought-provoking, and political, The Thief is a classic and revered favorite for good reason. There’s plenty to chew on, when you aren’t being roped in by the exciting action that Gen finds himself in often.
📚 This is the first book in: the Queen’s Thief series
The king’s scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king’s prison. The magus is interested only in the thief’s abilities.
What Gen is interested in is anyone’s guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.
11. Unchosen by Katharyn Blair
While a book about a deadly virus might be a *little* unsettling to read, this particular one is spread through eye contact, so it’s totally different! Besides, Chosen One Charlotte will save the day…right?
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.
12. Court of Fives by Kate Elliott
High fantasy with Little Women influence makes for an equally endearing and exciting story you won’t be able to get enough of!
📚 This is the first book in: the Court of Fives series
On the Fives court, everyone is equal.
And everyone is dangerous.
Jessamy’s life is a balance between acting like an upper-class Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But away from her family, she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for the Fives, an intricate, multilevel athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom’s best competitors.
Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an improbable friendship between the two Fives competitors—one of mixed race and the other a Patron boy—causes heads to turn. When Kal’s powerful, scheming uncle tears Jes’s family apart, she’ll have to test her new friend’s loyalty and risk the vengeance of a royal clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.
13. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Of course, Katniss Everdeen has to make the list. As a Chosen One, she has it all: wit, grit, determination, and a protective nature. The Capitol never really stood a chance.
📚 This is the first book in: The Hunger Games
Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning?
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.
Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.
14. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
This queer, Latinx-infused fantasy series follows three sisters―and teen witches―as they develop their powers and battle magic through epic questing in the realms beyond.
📚 This is the first book in: the Brooklyn Brujas series
I was chosen by the Deos. Even gods make mistakes.
Alex is a bruja and the most powerful witch in her family. But she’s hated magic ever since it made her father disappear into thin air. So while most girls celebrate their Quinceañera, Alex prepares for her Deathday―the most important day in a bruja’s life and her only opportunity to rid herself of magic.
But the curse she performs during the ceremony backfires, and her family vanishes, forcing Alex to absorb all of the magic from her family line. Left alone, Alex seeks help from Nova, a brujo with ambitions of his own.
To get her family back they must travel to Los Lagos, a land in-between, as dark as Limbo and as strange as Wonderland. And while she’s there, what she discovers about herself, her powers, and her family, will change everything…
15. The Merlin Conspiracy by Dianna Wynne Jones
What’s better than a YA fantasy with magic and a chosen one? A YA fantasy with magic, a chosen one, AND an elephant. Not the most conventional animal choice for its genre, but Dianna Wynne Jones is always full of surprises, and this book will surprise you plenty.
📚 This is the first book in: the Brooklyn Brujas series
When the Merlin of Blest dies, everyone thinks it’s a natural death. But Roddy and Grundo, two children traveling with the Royal Court, soon discover the truth. The Merlin’s replacement and other courtiers are scheming to steal the magic of Blest for their own purposes.
Roddy enlists the help of Nick, a boy from another world, and the three turn to their own impressive powers. The dangers are great, and if Roddy, Grundo, and Nick cannot stop the conspirators, the results will be more dreadful than they could possibly imagine.
16. Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson
Nothing drives a Chosen One like the feeling of vengeance—and David, protagonist of Steelheart, has plenty to go around.
📚 This is the first book in: The Reckoners series
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his will.
Nobody fights the Epics…nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.
And David wants in. He wants Steelheart—the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David’s father. For years, like the Reckoners, David’s been studying, and planning — and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.
He’s seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.
17. Mirror X by Karri Thompson
Not to throw another plague novel into this mix, but Cassie’s determination to make her own decisions make her an admirable Chosen One.
📚 This is the first book in: The Van Winkle Project
Cassie Dannacher wakes up in a hospital over 1,000 years into the future after her space capsule is retrieved from space. She soon learns that 600 years prior to her arrival, the earth was struck by a plague, killing over half of the world’s population. Naïve and desperate, Cassie, who longs for home and is having trouble adjusting to the new, dictatorial 31st century government, is comforted by Michael Bennett, the 20-year old lead geneticist at the hospital where she was revived.
But why is Cassie in genetics’ hospital in the first place, and why do several of the people around her seem so familiar, including Travel Carson, the hot and edgy boy she is fated to meet? Soon she discovers there is a sinister answer to all of her questions – and that they want something from Cassie that only she can give.
18. The Magicians by Lev Grossman
With a Chosen One whose demeanor resembles that of the infamous Holden Caulfield, The Magicians is worth reading.
📚 This is the first book in: The Magicians series
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.
He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.
At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.
19. The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett
As far as Chosen One stories go, it doesn’t get much more bizarre and imaginative than the Discworld series starring the young and witty Tiffany Aching, which is perfect for new and older readers alike.
📚 This is the first book in: the Discworld series
A nightmarish danger threatens from the other side of reality. . . .
Armed with only a frying pan and her common sense, young witch-to-be Tiffany Aching must defend her home against the monsters of Fairyland. Luckily she has some very unusual help: the local Nac Mac Feegle—aka the Wee Free Men—a clan of fierce, sheep-stealing, sword-wielding, six-inch-high blue men.
Together they must face headless horsemen, ferocious grimhounds, terrifying dreams come true, and ultimately the sinister Queen of the Elves herself. . . .
20. Reboot by Amy Tintera
The world Amy Tintera creates in her Reboot series is reminiscent of the dystopian future that Ray Bradbury was famous for. Unlike Bradbury’s novels, the girls in this series (particularly the heroine, Wren) have agency.
📚 This is the first book in: the Reboot series
Wren Connolly died five years ago, only to Reboot after 178 minutes. Now she is one of the deadliest Reboots around . . . unlike her newest trainee, Callum 22, who is practically still human. As Wren tries to teach Callum how to be a soldier, his hopeful smile works its way past her defenses. Unfortunately, Callum’s big heart also makes him a liability, and Wren is ordered to eliminate him. To save Callum, Wren will have to risk it all.
Wren’s captivating voice and unlikely romance with Callum will keep readers glued to the page in Amy Tintera’s high-stakes alternate reality, and diving straight into its action-packed sequel, Rebel.
21. A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Grey
With gorgeous world-building, an enticing love triangle, and an amazing heroine, Marguerite, A Thousand Pieces of You will sweep you off your feet.
📚 This is the first book in: the Firebird series
Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their groundbreaking achievements. Their most astonishing invention, called the Firebird, allows users to jump into multiple universes—and promises to revolutionize science forever. But then Marguerite’s father is murdered, and the killer—her parent’s handsome, enigmatic assistant Paul— escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.
Marguerite refuses to let the man who destroyed her family go free. So she races after Paul through different universes, always leaping into another version of herself. But she also meets alternate versions of the people she knows—including Paul, whose life entangles with hers in increasingly familiar ways. Before long she begins to question Paul’s guilt—as well as her own heart. And soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is far more sinister than she expected.
22. Fate of Flames by Sarah Raughley
One thing we enjoy more than Chosen One stories? When the Chosen Ones are a badass group of friends like in the Effigies series, starring four girls with the power to control the elements who must come together to save the world from a terrible evil.
📚 This is the first book in: the Effigies series
Years ago, everything changed.
Phantoms, massive beasts of nightmare, began terrorizing the world. At the same time four girls, the Effigies, appeared, each with the unique power to control a classical element. Since then, they have protected the world from the Phantoms. At the death of one Effigy, another is chosen, pulled from her normal life into the never-ending battle.
When Maia unexpectedly becomes the next Fire Effigy, she resists her new calling. A quiet girl with few friends and almost no family, she was much happier to admire the Effigies from afar. Never did she imagine having to master her ability to control fire, to protect innocent citizens from the Phantoms, or to try bringing together the other three Effigies.
But with the arrival of the mysterious Saul—a man who seems to be able to control the Phantoms using the same cosmic power previously only granted to four girls at a time—Maia and the other Effigies must learn to work together in a world where their celebrity is more important than their heroism.
But the secrets Saul has, and the power he possesses, might be more than even they can handle…
Who’s your favorite Chosen One? Let us know!