Review: Taken by Erin Bowman

Taken (Taken, #1)
There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

I may have to cut this review short since there are so many possible spoilers in the book that it'll be difficult for me to talk about the book without spoiling what happens. Just a warning.

This book started out quite strong but to me the whole book didn't live up to my expectations. I lost interest for a while in the middle and whilst it definitely did pick up near the end the whole middle bit was just a bit meh... I'm not saying this is a bad book at all, it wasn't great though, it was somewhere between mediocre and okay and I hate to say that but I'm just being brutally honest.
The start was great, I was intrigued by this world, by what's happening with the Heist and the almost cultish world in Claysoot, but then the middle comes and it turns into a typical dystopian, big-brother type of world and then the end is action packed and exciting again, but the main bulk of the book seemed to lack originality and good pacing.

Gray is believable as a teenage boy because he makes stupid decisions, is naive in relationships and is constantly questioning his world and I liked Emma to start with because she seemed like a strong-willed character. The romance started slow, which is great but I did find that it lacked a little chemistry, there will be a love-triangle in the next book and I'm not sure who I'll be rooting for.

I probably will read the second book just because the bad pacing here could be down to the world building, but I don't think it'll be a must read for me and I won't have high expectations


Book released 16th April 2013 by HarperTeen
Book received for review as an eBook (Edelweiss)

1 comment

  1. interesting review and i totally wanted to get this from edelweiss but i thought against it since i had too much to read but if you are rating it c- then maybe i won't get it when it comes out

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