The Taking (Taking Trilogy, #1)

by Kimberly Derting

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer meets The Fifth Wave in this chilling and explosive new series from author Kimberly Derting. The last thing Kyra Agnew remembers is a flash of bright light. She awakes to discover that five whole years have passed. Everyone in her life has moved on-her parents are divorced, her boyfriend is in college and dating her best friend-but Kyra's still the sixteen-year-old she was when she vanished. She finds herself drawn to Tyler, her boyfriend's kid brother, despite her best efforts to ignore this growing attraction. In order to find out the truth, the two of them decide to retrace her steps from that fateful night. They discover that there are others who have been "taken," just like Kyra. But Kyra is the first person to have been returned past the forty-eight-hour taken mark. With a determined secret government agency after her, Kyra desperately tries to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had ...but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

• ISBN10: 0062293621
• ISBN13: 9780062293626
• Publish Date: 29 April 2014
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: eBook
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber]

This review was originally posted on Books of Amber

The Taking makes me sad, you guys, and not in a good way. I’m a huge fan of the first three books in Derting’s Body Finder series (not so much the fourth) and I also really enjoyed The Pledge, so I was looking forward to The Taking. I initially thought that it was about fairies but I was so very wrong. I know, I don’t know how I come to these conclusions either.


Anyway, The Taking disappointed me in many ways. Firstly, the bloody romance was appalling. It started off so well, with the main character whose name I can’t remember Kyra returning home to find everything had changed, and mistaking the love interest for her (ex)boyfriend. I was all for it, because I like complicated relationships and this one had the opportunity to really impress me, but it soon turned into insta-love and oh my god, it was terrible.

The other relationships in this book were also poorly developed, and I found myself rolling my eyes at everyone because they were ridiculous. Kyra’s relationship with her mother and new family is cliché, since she is on the outs with all of them and her mother is painted as the bad guy. There is absolutely no resolution or development on that front. Kyra’s father has always been one of her greatest supporters, but when Kyra returns from being Taken their relationship is strained because her dad has turned into a conspiracy theorist. Then there’s the ex-boyfriend, with whom Kyra has one tiny conversation with and suddenly she doesn’t love him any more (after being best friends with him and, later, involved romantically involved with him for years) and the ex-best friend who, again, is given a tiny scene in which nothing really gets said.

Instead of focussing on those already established relationships, Derting decided to focus almost solely on Kyra and Tyler and their new found “love”. They were together romantically for a handful of days before deciding they should get married (not really) and make all the babies (again, not true) and I felt like I was reading Twilight all over again. It should go without saying that family > insta-love, and Derting really disappointed me on that front.

The plot outside of the love story was all right. I was interested in the abduction stuff and the fireflies and the government agency that was after Kyra, but it all felt pretty standard. The mystery surrounding Kyra’s disappearance was interesting, though, especially when I thought it had something to do with fairies. The fairy thing made total sense to me for most of the book, but it turns out I was completely off the mark there. Oops. I blame the front cover.

I don’t recommend The Taking. At all. But I will probably look up to see what happens in the sequel because I am kind of interested in that aspect. I just don’t want to take the time to actually read it. It makes me really sad, because Derting’s early works were excellent, but the newer two books I have read have been very mediocre, and even less than.

[catiebug]

Kimberly Derting has don't it again. This book was amazing and I'm totally hooked.

I loved everything about this book. The plot, the characters - everything.

That ending though! I need the next book NOW!

Does anyone else remember the movie THE FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR? It was a Disney movie from the 1980's about a kid who comes home one day to discover that he's unknowingly been missing for years without having aged a day while his family and friends have all gotten older. He has no memory of the missing time and ends up on the run from the authorities in a UFO. I loved that movie as a kid and since the premise for THE TAKING was nearly identical (and because I really enjoyed Derting's THE BODY FINDER), I thought THE TAKING would be a home run.

Sadly, no.

The most believable thing about a book involving aliens shouldn't be the aliens, but it was. Nothing made a whole lot of sense in THE TAKING. After being missing for 5 years and having no memory of that time, no one thinks to have any medical tests done on Kyra. No one thinks it's odd that she hasn't aged a day, and in fact they don't even notice it until well into the book at a routine dentist appointment. No authorities are called to interview or investigate. No reporters show up or call for interviews. No one even asks her about it. Her family goes back to life as normal pretty much the next day, leaving Kyra to take off without notice when ever she wants (she comes home at night and everyone has already gone to bed!). It all seemed so ludicrous that people would act so casually after a missing child returns after five years-- especially since they assumed she was dead!

On top of that, the romance. Oh, the romance. It was the most egregious case of insta-love I've read maybe ever. Kyra was head over heels, we're-practically-planning-our-wedding in love with Austin one day, the next day--five years later for everyone else--she spots Austin's now 17 year old brother, Tyler, and gets all swoony. Within a week--a week!--they are using the L-word. It was insane. I kept wishing Derting would have just kept the same boyfriend and had them struggle with overcoming the age difference and missing years instead of switching one brother for another in such a short period of time but expecting the reader to buy in to a new supposed love. Kyra literally went from crazy in love with one to crazy in love with the other in five days without any downtime or real heartbreak.

The aliens and mystery about why they took Kyra and then returned her, the others they have taken, and the changes wrought in these returned people is all very interesting and suspenseful. But there were so many frustrating things about THE TAKING that defy credulity. The aliens I buy, it's all the humans that are unbelievable in this book.

[Kelly]

http://www.divabooknerd.com/2014/05/the-taking-by-kimberly-derting.html
The Taking was even better than I had anticipated, considering most of the early reviews I had read weren't so favorable, usually that's a sure sign that it'll be something I'd enjoy. It wasn't the characters, although Tyler was adorable, it wasn't the theme as aliens have been covered time and time again. It was the intrigue. I love a good mystery and The Taking provided me with a fun and entertaining storyline, in which the reader will discover Kyra's world just as she does. With caution and skepticism. I really enjoyed the scenario that Kimberly Derting created, teens taken, returned and left to wonder why. I enjoyed both The Pledge series and Body Finders and yet again I've found another Derting series that I'll be eagerly awaiting.

But there are a standout issues with the storyline, the romance between Kyra and Tyler. The last time Kyra had seen Austin's younger brother, he was only twelve years old. Now he's seventeen, she's twenty one but hasn't aged a day over sixteen and within days, she's fallen in love. Umm, no. It's creepy. The other being Kyra's refusal to accept that Austin and her best friend are now together. I understand that she's only sixteen both mentally and physically, but surely she couldn't have expected her friends and family to not go on with their lives and the only reason she seems to come to terms with what she feels is Austin's betrayal, is Tyler. Even though she seemed to fight the attraction, the romance fell flat, not only due to the disturbing age difference before Kyra was taken, but she replaced the one she couldn't have, with the brother who was conveniently there.

But regardless, it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next installment in the series.

[kimbacaffeinate]

review to post soon

[Leah]

As much as I love reading Chick Lit novels – and I do, a lot; sometimes I like a change. I’ve been reading a lot of YA recently and it’s been refreshing, sometimes it’s just really great to get out of your comfort zone and read something entirely unexpected and Kimberly Derting is an author who offers that for me. I love her Body Finder series, and I keep meaning to complete it, so when I saw she had a new novel available on Edelweiss I was instantly intrigued and couldn’t wait to dive in.

For me, The Taking had me hooked as soon as I read the synopsis – a girl vanishes in a blinding white light, and wakes up at the Gas N Sip 5 years later and everyone but her has moved on. Her boyfriend, Austin, is living the life they were supposed to live together, her mother and father have split up and her mom has even remarried and had another kid and her boyfriend’s brother, Tyler, is suddenly the spitting image of him. That’s pretty amazing stuff right there and I truly had no idea where the novel was going to go – mostly because I sometimes like a book to surprise me, and boy, did The Taking do that!

The Taking is the kind of novel that when you finish it, you sit there asking yourself “What the hell just happened? What did I just read?”, or at least I did because I thought the novel was a contemporary novel, perhaps with a paranormal twist a la The Body Finder books, but actually, it also has a scifi twist. I don’t read scifi novels. Books that feature all that techy stuff confuse me and I don’t like aliens, I can believe almost anything – a girl that can sense dead bodies, vampires, werewolves, witches but aliens ain’t my thing, ain’t my cup of tea and that’s the sticking point for me, for this novel. It isn’t even conclusive, though, but even the thought that aliens may be involved gives me the heebie jeebies.

Apart from that, though, the novel had everything I loved – a mystery, a fantastic narrator in Kyra, a swoon worthy romantic lead in Tyler and I did think the novel was a breath of fresh air. It was also kinda scary, and I did sometimes put it down because unlike the books I usually read, I actually had no idea where this novel was going to go and I felt as if I had no control over it. It was very bizarre and it did sort of make me not want I read more, in the same way in which I wanted to devour it just to get it over with!

Part of me kinda wishes The Taking didn’t have the sci fi part, because the rest of it was amazing but without all that weirdness then I doubt the novel could have happened so… Kimberly Derting is a fantastic writer, I love her books and it says a lot when I’m willing to read a book about potential aliens (even if it was unwitting). I’m so glad I read it, because it’s a fantastic, frenetic opening to her new series (which I also didn’t know until I started reading…) and I will be picking up book two because not only do I need to see where this goes, but I definitely need more or Kyra and Tyler because I loved them. I’ve never known two characters to click as much as they did, and I just want them to live happily ever after, forever and ever. We will see!

[Kelsenator]

3.5/5