Unraveling Words: Early Unraveling of The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking

Series: The Taking Book One

Author: Kimberly Derting
Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Publication Date: April 29, 2014

A flash of white light . . . and then . . . nothing.

When sixteen-year-old Kyra Agnew wakes up behind a Dumpster at the Gas ’n’ Sip, she has no memory of how she got there. With a terrible headache and a major case of déjà vu, she heads home only to discover that five years have passed . . . yet she hasn’t aged a day.

Everything else about Kyra’s old life is different. Her parents are divorced, her boyfriend, Austin, is in college and dating her best friend, and her dad has changed from an uptight neat-freak to a drunken conspiracy theorist who blames her five-year disappearance on little green men.

Confused and lost, Kyra isn’t sure how to move forward unless she uncovers the truth. With Austin gone, she turns to Tyler, Austin’s annoying kid brother, who is now seventeen and who she has a sudden undeniable attraction to. As Tyler and Kyra retrace her steps from the fateful night of her disappearance, they discover strange phenomena that no one can explain, and they begin to wonder if Kyra’s father is not as crazy as he seems. There are others like her who have been taken . . . and returned. Kyra races to find an explanation and reclaim the life she once had, but what if the life she wants back is not her own?

***

My Thoughts

A copy was provided through Edelweiss and HaperCollins in exchange for an honest review

I was hesitant to read this book because it was by Derting and her previous Body Finder series just didn't do it for me, but the subject matter and that beautiful cover made me cave in, not to mention I just had to press that little green Download Now button instead of actually requesting. So download I did. I really shouldn't have. I really could have gone without.

I didn't like Kyra. At all. She was a brat, spoiled, and selfish. Worst case of Only child syndrome ever. Look, it can't be easy waking up the 'next day' and finding out that 5 years have passed, your parents are divorced, your mother remarried and had another kid. It must be brutal, but you DO NOT act like a self entitled little bitch because of it either. After a few days of having been back, Kyra sneaks out of the house and tells no one, because hell, what's the point, it's not like she was JUST MISSING FOR FIVE YEARS.

I thought about leaving a note or something for my mom to let her know where I'd be, but then I figured she had my number -because she was the only one beside Tyler, who did-and she could call if she was worried.

Moving on!

Tyler, Tyler, Tyler. I really liked you at the start but then that spark just fizzled and died. You went from swoon worthy to just a tad pathetic and I don't do pathetic. Went from Lovely, epic chalk drawings with beautiful quotes and sharing books because "I want to share one of my very favorite things in the world with you, Kyra." To being just a puppy being dragged around by Kyra with zero back bone and no substance. To say I was disappointed is an understatement. I'm hoping this changes in the second book. (Not sure if I'm gonna read it though. Probably not).

Kyra was absolutely boy crazy. There were I love you's exchanged after exactly 7 days of her coming back. Just no. It made it seem like Kyra couldn't be her own person, she always had to have a boy with her to define herself. It was frustrating. She had already decided to throw a future full of promise away because she wanted to go to same college as her boyfriend.

Kyra was also stupid. She gets some blood work done and the guy that draws her blood is found dead not a day later after that. Does she get curious? Eh, it was a very fleeting thought in between her obsession with Tyler. She also doesn't need to eat much or sleep. But she is totally normal guys. She is 21 now, so she wants to be treated as an adult, but acts like a 5 year old instead and is vindictive enough to get a toy that her 2 year old brother wants just to watch him squirm. But she is an adult now! She can totally take care of herself.

She only decides to figure things out at around the halfway mark, and that's when things started looking up. Everything was a tad unbelievable but I was willing to go along with it till they got to the contagious part. If a disease is air-borne that means it's transmitted through aerosol particles from when you sneeze and cough. It does NOT mean that just because your blood is out in the open and you breath in the same air you suddenly have the disease. Not only would the blood have to touch you, you would need to have an open wound to be infected. Not to mention the inherent properties of the virus/pathogen and how much of the virus you'd have to be exposed to, to actually get the disease. This was VERY poorly done. So unless Derting comes up with it's actually a an alien parasite that worms into your skin or some such bizarre thing then I'm not buying it at all.

Oh, and did I mention she was also a special snowflake?

They have done something different to you-to make you special.

This girl is slow on the uptake, uses Tyler's phone to call her mom when the NSA is looking for her, uses a phone when they are running in a pitch black forest at night while being chased by dogs/NSA agents, therefore giving away her position. She argues about the fashion statement fanny packs make and refuses to put stuff she needs to carry in it because it's such a nerdy thing to use. Who cares that she can't use her hands now.

"I'm not letting my stuff touch that thing. My hands work just fine. You know your nerd status just shot up like a million points, don't you?"

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. I only kept reading cause I wanted to know who takes the people, but of course we don't get real answers and some weird crap happened at the end that makes no sense and it of course ends in a cliffwanker.

Needless to say I give up on this author and I'll just get someone to spoil the rest of the trilogy for me so I can have some peace of mind.

So...