Taken by Erin Bowman

Title: Taken
Author: Erin Bowman
Series: (Taken) Book #1
Format- ebook
Publisher- HarperTeen
Release Date- April 16th, 2013
Pages- 237
Source- Edelweiss

There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

Grey Weathersby is not the type of person that people look up to. He's impulsive, his personality fiery, and out of control. He questions the way of life he is forced to live and the unknown answers that come with it. There is no real love between a girl and a boy where he comes from because everyone knows that it could never last. He lives in a world where there are slating's - when boys and girls are made to be with each other so that the population doesn't decrease. Boys go from girl to girl until the moment when they are heisted. Every year without fail when a boy turns 18 there is a bright light and the earth shakes. Then they are gone. Taken away into the unknown. This time around it will be Grey's brother who gets heisted. With the loss of his brother and a new profound discovery Grey finds he decides he must go beyond the Wall and finally find the answers he's been searching for.

I love when I can get my hands on a really great dystopian book. I love the world that is being created right before my eyes. Secrets lurking everywhere. Life altering discoveries. The action and the romance. I love how through it all you know the world presented to you isn't what it's made out to be. It's so much more and it is thrilling. The concept of the Wall isn't a new one for me. The Roar by Emma Clayton also presents a situation where there is a Wall and no one can go beyond it for fear of death. The Roar is a favorite of mine so Taken already had a head start to my heart. Unlike The Roar which takes place in a overcrowded city with unhealthy living conditions Taken is set in Claysoot which is a fairly run town with healers and trade. There is the problem with the men leaving at a certain age so the population has to be... replenished before they are gone. It shows the truly disturbing side of Claysoot. Not only are they trapped, they are like animals, mindlessly breeding. It's just a sad way to live your life. A mother doesn't want boys because she knows she will only feel pain when they are gone. It represents the great wrong that dystopia's always have. There's wrong in the world so that means there has to be a hero to save the world and our hero is an unlikely one.

Grey is a bit of a bad boy but he's more rebellious than cocky so it's okay. I loved that he was an outsider and was really just misunderstood. He has a good heart but people just see him as the dangerous one. Everyone compares him to his older brother Blaine and guess who they prefer? Blaine is the ultimate big brother. He's responsible and does what he's told. All the girl's like him of course. He's relationship with his brother was very sweet to me. They really cared about each other and you could tell they were close even if Blaine kind of like reprimanded him sometimes. I come across male POV's very few times in YA. It's nice when there's not as much emotion that we have to deal with. He cares about his brother and other people but it's not like I have to worry about the constant mention of his feelings towards someone. He does have some love interests but it's different. It mixes well with the action in the story.

There's a love triangle. I thought at first it worked well but then I got an uneasy feeling because he just wasn't really caring about one of them. I thought that he wasn't acting like the guy I met at the beginning. That and the pace had me a little worried. At some point the story was going too fast for me. All this information was being thrown at me and I'm sure Grey was feeling the same way but for me it wasn't something that I liked about the story. I decided to stop because I was reading it without stopping because even if it was a little too fast paced it was still really exciting. When I got back to the story it was completely fine. With my head clear I was ready to get back to the action. This book doesn't skimp on the amount of twists, surprise, and drama that comes with it all. I was audibly gasping at times. I was letting the story take me away into its world and I was loving it. The deception that comes along is just right. The bad guy is just pure evil. He's so condescending and doesn't care who dies so he can take over the world.

There is SO much possibility in the next book. It's going to be epic!!! I wish I could tell you how but that would ruin everything. It has to do with one of the twists in the story. With what the characters are doing in the next book you can imagine what they will be doing in the others. It makes me wonder how many more books are going to be created and if there is enough to do everything they need to. There's tension at the end with the love triangle. I feel like one of them was made to look worse than she is so I'm interested to see where that ends up. I honestly like both of them so whichever way it goes I'll be happy. I don't want the story to be consumed by it though. I want to see the fast paced action I saw in this one because I think it'll work well. I want more deception and twists that get me outraged and fearing for the characters' lives. I want it to be even better than this story. It's going to be amazing I just know it just like Taken was to me now.

For more info about Erin Bowman and her book go to:

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