Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

[wanderingmuses]

The book is a Young Adult/Science Fiction novel. The story revolves around a 16-year old by the name of Kyra Agnew who is the star softball player on her local high school team. On the way home from her match, she gets into an argument with her father on the topic of college scouts and her current boyfriend. Annoyed, Kyra demands he stops the car and gets out of the car, wanting to run away from him when suddenly, a white blinding light surrounds her and she collapses. Five years later, Kyra wakes up to find herself behind a dumpster with no memory of what happened to her and why she was there. She's in for a bigger surprise when Kyra realizes that she's still sixteen years old, dressed in the same softball uniform she had the day of the winning match. Everyone and everything's changed; her boyfriend, Austin is now dating her best friend in college, her father is an alcoholic that thrives on crazy theories of aliens ever since her disappearance, and the once 12 year old little brother of her former boyfriend, Tyler is now 17 and still crushing on her. With the help of Tyler, Kyra begins to realize that maybe her father's theories about aliens aren't so crazy after all when she finds out that there are others out there like her who have been taken and returned.

This book was a pretty fast read. I was entertained but the story moved too quickly. You had no time to feel anything with Kyra or dwell on how her life was before the taking or feel any kind of sympathy for the five years she lost or the relationships that were altered. Once Kyra is back to her former life, you're just smacked in the face with all the changes and most of her energy is invested in avoiding her parents and getting attached to Tyler. However, her relationship with Tyler didn't have time to deepen; a few days and they were suddenly head over heels for each other even though she was madly in love with his brother a week before. Even though Tyler is a likable character, more than Kyra I would say, it was too fast. Kyra was an okay character but she didn't strike me as 'going to remember her' type of character and I think she could've had a better handle on certain situations in the book. Once she starts discovering that her body is going through changes and she has powers, things start taking drastic changes with not enough explaining.

Overall though, the concept was very very interesting. I liked it but was disappointed that at the end you had zero answers as to why these takings happen or what happened to Kyra and others during the process of the taking . I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars.