The Taking (Taking Trilogy, #1)

by Kimberly Derting

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.