Rating: 
Summary: Insightful, Interesting, and Moving
Review: I read The Chosen for my literature class at school, and I enjoyed it very much! Chaim Potok did a wonderful job of portraying the life of two young Jewish-American boys. Based in Brooklyn in the 1940s, we first meet the narrator, the modern Orthodox Reuven Saunders, as a 15 year old. An incident occurs to where he becomes close to his Ultra-Orthodox (Hasidic) counterpart, Danny Saunders. One is a mathematician and the other aspires to become a psychologist. Both are brilliant scholars of the Torah and the Talmud. Although I had little knowledge of Jewish customs and cultures, after reading this book, I learned some aspects of Judaism I never knew before. Potok defined many Jewish and Yiddish terms that otherwise I would not have any clue understanding. He made this a novel which looks into the lives of two brilliant young men who struggles to preserve their friendship and their own beliefs.
Rating: 
Summary: This Book is Terrible
Review: For your convinience, I will now boil down The Chosen into one easily readable paragraph:
"I can hear silence," Danny said sadly. I went over and gave him a big hug. After that we went for a long walk. We walked for about two hours. We walked at a medium pace. While we walked, we talked about the Torah. Danny does four blat of the Torah a day! Danny's so smart, I can only do two blat. After that we went to Danny's house and argued with his dad. We argued about the Torah. Then I went home and cried.
Now imagine if this paragraph was two hundred pages long. That is pretty much all The Chosen is.
Rating: 
Summary: The Chosen Review
Review: The Chosen by Chaim Potok is definitly an unregular kind of book, I must egmit that not every page is as attracting as the other. Although I liked reading it and I can tell you that doesn't happen so often. To everybody who has a certain doubt whether to open or skip the book,give it a chance, I can assure you you won't consider it a waste of your time afterwards.A book you shouldn't refuse. Whithout a doubt!!
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Summary: Great but difficult book
Review: I think this book is a real good one. I've read it for a schools assignment and first I thought it was boring to do, but later when I was reading the book, I started to like it. It is a very interesting and high quality book, and even easy to understand for people who don't read English very well. I would recommend it to everyone!
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful story and superbly written.....
Review: I loved this story. Who wouldn't? It has universal appeal that is undeniable, even though some of the religious themes are strictly Jewish. Even so, the fact that I'm not Jewish didn't stop me from appreciating the way the author presented his faith. The book was superbly written and in a way that allows people of all faiths to appreciate it's themes of friendship, conflict, love, and loyalty. A must read.....
Rating: 
Summary: Fathers and Sons----the kosher version
Review: When I started reading THE CHOSEN, I was rather disappointed. It read like a run-of-the-mill pop fiction work for at least 90 pages. Reuven Malter, 15, plays baseball for his yeshiva team in Brooklyn; their opponents are a Hasidic team whose star is Danny Saunders, the 15 year old son of the religious guru or the tzaddik of a Hasidic community. The teams clash, Reuven winds up in the hospital thanks to stopping a vicious line drive with his glasses. Danny, the hitter, comes to visit him and apologizes. They become friends. The year is 1944---D-Day and the war hover in the background. There are a couple other stock characters. At that point, the tenor of the novel changes to a schematic balancing of the two sets of fathers and sons. Reuven's father teaches in the yeshiva where his son studies, but he is more open to the outside world. Danny's father is a patriarch steeped in tradition, bearing the cares of all his people on his shoulders, revered by them to extremes. Danny, with a photographic memory and keen mind, has long been tipped to succeed his father, hence he is "the chosen" one. Reuven, the less religious of the two, decides to become a rabbi. Danny wants to go into psychology, but will his father permit it ? Can their friendship hold out before the narrow, strict vision of life of Danny's father ? Will Danny's fate be decided for him or will the American ideal of individual choice prevail ? THE CHOSEN is a coming of age novel with a difference, it traces the onset of maturity, the making of life choices in an environment unfamiliar to most people in the world. Mainly, though, the novel compares and contrasts differing ideas on Jewish life and the creation of Israel. There are also earnest discourses on psychology and Freud, the Talmud and logic. Readers can learn a lot about Jewish tradition and customs, including, by induction, the importance of women in Orthodox Jewish life (there are perhaps ten lines about women in the whole book, showing how they take care of men). Though I did learn a lot about Hasidic thought and practice, I did not admire this novel in terms of literary power. Both Bernard Malamud and Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote to a much higher standard on similar topics. I felt continually as though Potok was using the text to educate me. I don't object to such sincere and gentle lecturing, but it seldom produces great literature. I think that your take on this novel will depend on your age. The younger you are, the fresher it will appear.
Rating:
Summary: Good Job Potok!!!
Review: This book was class assigned, by my english teacher... and right away i thought, "Oh God, class books are soooooo boring!" But as soon as i finished the first page, i got really into it, and I ended up loving it. The friendship between Danny and Reuven is heart warming and inspiring. Their experiences can alter the way people view religion for years to come. Good Job Potok!!!
Rating:
Summary: The Chosen
Review: This was a very uneventful book. I recomend reading a different book because this is quite boring. The plot is weak and nothing interesting happens at all. This book deserves to be burned, not read. Don't buy it.
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Summary: Reviewer from NY
Review: This is the BEST book I have ever read!!! It is very well written, its subject is great, and its characters are very well rounded. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic fiction. READ THIS BOOK!! My mom bought it for me when I was 10 because she liked it when she was a child and is now reading it after I told her it was outstanding. The rest of my family also wants to read it.
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Summary: Blink Of An Eye
Review: This is one of those books that come back to you. The thoughts of the readers, the highlighted moments, their downfalls and upheavals. I just want to share with you the main point that Potok is trying to make in the book. "Human beings do not live forever. We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer SO MUCH...if our lives are nothing more than the blink of an eye?
I learned a long time ago that the blink of an eye itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, THAT is something. A span of life is nothing. But the man who lives that span, HE is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so it's quality is immeasureable though the quanity may be insignificant. Do you understand what I am saying? A man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill one's life with meaning. THAT I do not think you understand yet.
A LIFE FILLED WITH MEANING IS WORTHY OF REST. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here." THAT is what The Chosen is about.
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