The Taking

Oh my goodness … where do I start!  How about … I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!  I didn’t know what to think when I first picked it up.  It’s not my “usual” read.  However, I was pleasantly surprised.  I was surprised by the characters.  I was surprised by the plot.  I was surprised by how entertainingly brilliant the book was.  It kept me locked in my room, reading … only coming up for air to eat.  The Taking was everything I hoped for and more.

Kyra was the heroine.  She was your typical teenager, trying to figure out what path her life was going to take.  One night, everything changed.  After getting in a fight with her dad, she disappeared.  To Kyra, it seemed like she was only gone for the night.  However, five years had gone by and EVERYTHING had changed.  Life had gone on without her and now she was trying to figure out how she fit in with all the changes.  I don’t want to say too much because part of what I loved most about the book was not knowing what was around the corner.  I liked discovering things as Kyra was discovering them and trying to figure out the puzzle that The Taking revealed so amazingly.

There was a swoon-worthy love interest in the novel.  Kimberly Derting wrote it brilliantly.  Just the right amount of “crushing” to go along with a sixteen year old brain.  It was a sweet relationship that flowed easily and worked perfectly.

The plot was fast moving and kept me hooked throughout the entire book.  There were tons of thrills and secrets that kept me in the roll as “novel-detective” … trying to figure out what was going to happen next.  This was definitely a “can’t-put-down” book!  (This book has already cycled through two others in my family ... Dad/Husband included.  PS - He LOVED it!)

The Taking was an incredible YA paranormal romance.  I absolutely loved it!  And the ending … oh my goodness!  Just read it.  See what I’m talking about.  I’m sure you will love it too!

Here’s a little bit more about what The Taking is all about:

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?