***SPOILER ALERT!*** 
 Zoey's growing into a role of leadership, think for herself, and show some courage. She had ideas, and she made things happen. But in CHOSEN Zoey backslides a lot - she keeps coming up with plans of action (especially where her romantic life is concerned), and then...doing the exact opposite of what she decides. She makes some progress with Stevie Rae, but loses control everywhere else. 
 She makes some decisions that cause her friends to think twice about her. But I ended up thinking less of her friends because of these incidents. 
 A good example comes from the very beginning of the book, in the first chapter. Zoey's birthday is Christmas Eve and she has a serious problem with "Birthmas," when Christmas and Birthday gifts are smooshed together. But all of her friends get her Christmas-themed birthday presents. This seems unlikely from people like the Twins and Damien, who are very fashion-conscious and unlikely to get excited about kitsch. Zoey isn't thrilled but she thanks them all as enthusiastically as she can. 
 Then her friends spy on a birthday card from Zoey's old boyfriend that mentions how much she hates getting Christmassy gifts for her birthday...and they all get angry at Zoey. Because she should have told them what not to get before she knew what they were getting? Because she didn't tell them she didn't like their presents as she was opening them? Both of these things would have been pretty tacky and rude. But her friends are unanimous in their disapproval. 
 This whole incident left me feeling pretty frustrated with her friends, who were way too quick to jump on her, and whose behavior had been a little bizarre to begin with. Later on in the book, this type of incident is repeated and I was even more shocked at how fickle her friends appear to be. If someone has your back, they shouldn't be so fast to turn against you. 
 The end result is that even though Zoey is facing more difficult challenges than ever before, they felt manufactured and artificial to me. I'm not sure if I thought CHOSEN was better or worse than earlier books - it's still fun, self-indulgent, and kind of lightweight. I'll be reading the next one when it comes out.