Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking
Author: Kimberly Derting
Series: Book One in the Taking Series
Published By: Harper Teen (April 29, 2014)
Source: ARC Copy Provided by the Publisher (in exchange for an honest review)
Genre: YA Fantasy/Sci Fi
My Rating: 4.5 Stars!

Book Description:
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?

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I love it when a book and an author can make me change my mind about a genre. I would love to say that books about alien abductions or anything sci fi of the sort were not something I would ever love or even be into but, after reading this one, I can happily say that isn't the case at all. In fact I ate this one up.

I have to be upfront, when I started this, I just pulled up the nearest book I had closet to me on my phone, one that was already downloaded and ready to go. I had a few minutes to kill before my daughter would be out of school and I was bored and needed something to occupy the next fifteen minutes of my time. I honestly pulled this open without even know which book it was since it was already opened and on the first chapter. I know, not a smart move but at the time I didn't care, I was going crazy and needed something to read.

So yeah. I completely forgot that this was about something extraordinary happening, something that might even have involved aliens and the beyond. Instead, I was quickly engrossed in the story. I literally ate it up and was so involved in it that I lost track of time and my daughter just about gave me a heart attack when she opened the car door and let herself in. I was so into the story I lost track of everything, what time it was, where I even was and what I was doing there...everything. 

I knew there was no way I was going to be able to put this one down but I didn't have a choice, I had things to do and other places to go, so with some reluctance I closed it out on my phone and went about my merry way...well, that is until I got home and then I immediately pulled it up again and quickly was wrapped up in the story once again and once again it consumed me.

I don't even know what to tell you other than I just couldn't get enough, of Kyra, of Tyler (oh sweet sweet Tyler, I want to eat you up!), of the mystery of Kyra's disappearance and of the Returned, the NSA, all of it.

I had so many questions flying around in my head, so many theories and so much I still wanted to know and learn. I was truly saddened when I came to that last page and that was it. The waiting now began. The very long wait until the release of the next book. The torturous wait. 

I can't even begin to tell you how shocked and completely taken (ha! No pun intended!) I am that I fell in love with this book as much as I did. In fact, even as I sit here and write this review, days later, I am still thinking about it and agonizing over what the next book will hold.

Well done Ms. Derting, well done. You have me hooked, hook, line and sinker and I will be anxiously awaiting the next book and not only that, but making sure I have all her others too because I truly loved her writing style and the way this girl can tell a story.

*All thoughts and opinions are my own and were not influenced by the author or publisher. I was not compensated for this review.*