The Taking (Taking Trilogy, #1)

by Kimberly Derting

[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!