Wednesday 25 June 2014

Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

The Taking by Kimberly Derting
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publication date: April 29th 2014
My rating: DNF/2 stars


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?

DNF at 70%

The Taking was one of those books which I went into with really high expectations, but it ended up being bit a of a disappointment. Just by reading the blurb, anyone would want to give this book a try; memory loss, kidnappings and unexplained disappearances. And whilst The Taking did start off by winning me over in the first few pages, it kind of petered off into something that I really wasn’t enjoying. Kyra has it all, a great family and she’s about to go off to college with her awesome boyfriend. But then she ends up getting into an argument with her dad and running away, all she can remember after that is a bright light and then waking up in the Gas n’ Sip five years later. I was intrigued what could have happened to Kyra, as time would tell Kyra seemed pretty much the same in the five years since she went missing, but everything else had turned into a train wreck around her. I did feel sorry for Kyra, everyone she knew had moved on, her parents had separated, her mother had got together with somebody else and had a child with him, her dad was no longer the strong figurative father that he used to be and her boyfriend had got together with her best friend. Seriously this is the thing that miffed me the most, why does this always have to happen? How many thousands of girls could there be living in their town, but Austin Kyra’s boyfriend decides to get together with his girlfriend’s best friend Cat instead. Then to top it all off, Kyra falls for Austin’s brother Tyler!! Seriously, okay Tyler was a sweet enough guy and had apparently been in love with Kyra forever, but still. 

Okay so swapping boyfriends aside, despite being annoyed by this, I found myself invested in finding out what had happened with Kyra, why was she still the same, (she still had a bruise from five years ago and an x-ray at the dentists showed her teeth were exactly the same too, even the crack in her tooth from five years ago). There were a lot of conspiracy theories flying about; her dad had thrown himself into research for the last five years looking for an answer. And I did want to know what was going on, but I think it just took too long getting there. I’m one of those readers that doesn’t DNF a book that often and instead tell myself to read another 10% and maybe something will happen, I always have that thought at the back of my head that by giving up now, I’ll probably miss out on something major just around the corner. And that’s exactly what I did with The Taking; I decided to continue reading a bit more, hoping that we would get a better insight into what was going on with Kyra. Instead we got random people lurking about claiming to know what was going on but never really explaining anything. Or Kyra being in constant denial about her feelings for Tyler! It’s a shame really as I really did want to know how things would end. But the more I read the more frustrated I became.





17 comments:

Book Passion for Life said...

O_o! I have this for review although I haven't gotten to it yet, but it does sounds fantastic! Sorry it's not for you. Yours isnt the first review I've seen like this x

The Bookish Manicurist said...

This sounds majorly confusing! I don't think I've seen any positive review of this yet, I'm sorry it was such a bad experience for you, Jas!

Mands @ The Bookish Manicurist

Shane @ItchingforBooks said...

Ohh sorry this one wasn't very great for you. I've been wanting to start this book for a while now but like what you said, I'm not sure I could wait that long to find out what was going on either. Sounds draggy. Thanks for your honest review.

Jennifer said...

Even though you didn't like this book you should finish it. I just read it last week. The end is totally different from the first 70% and so much better. The first 70% is like some YA contemporary. The last 30% brings on a lot of paranormal elements and to me it is what the whole book should have been.

Shirley said...

Oookayy that boyfriend swapping thing is so weird! I think I saw another 2 star review for this earlier today; I'll be staying far away from this :/ Thanks for the honest review Jasprit!<3

Mary @ BookSwarm said...

I've resisted picking the one up because I'm afraid I'm going to have the same reaction! It cracks me up that, though you DNFed this one, you also gave it 2 stars. I've done that with a couple of books -- you'd think a DNF would be a one or zero star but sometimes, they're just not!

Leanna Elle said...

This one was pretty much a dud for me too, which is a shame because I love Derting's Body Finder series and I had high hopes for this. I thought Kyra was a brat, btw!

Carina Olsen said...

Amazing review sweetie. <3 I'm so sorry that you didn't enjoy it :( And that you had to DNF it.. I did so too, though. Sniffs. But at about 30%. It just wasn't for me. But I wanted to love it so much. Ack. But yeah, not for me :\ I'm sorry it wasn't for you either.

Jenny said...

Awwww. Sorry this one was a bit of a fail for you Jasprit! I really enjoyed it, but I can definitely see why a number of things didn't work for you. For some reason the switching from one brother to the other in about a week's time (for Kyra at least) didn't bother me the way I would have expected it to if I'd read a bunch of reviews for it before picking it up. I have no idea why:) Hope whatever you try next is amazing!

Unknown said...

At least you gave it a good shot. The premise doesn't really interest me that much. The boyfriend swapping thing um doesn't appeal to me. Sorry you weren't able to finish it.

-P.E. @ The Sirenic Codex

Anonymous said...

I had the same issues with this book as you did, Jasprit. I finished the book, but I honestly felt like I wasted my entire time with it. I hated the boyfriend swapping thing and just couldn't stomach the idea of the MC with the little brother, given the huge age gap that existed between them. I also felt like so much of the focus was on the unnecessary romance than on the promising plot.
I'm sorry this was a disappointment to you, Jasprit. :(
Great review though!

Unknown said...

I don't think I've come across a single glowing review for this book! The publisher sent me a copy, and I think I'll just pass it on. Thanks for the review!

Anonymous said...

*BANGS HEAD OB DESK* Urgh i was originally so excited about this one but now a bunch of people haven't said all that many great things about it that i've decided to just stay away from it. *sigh*

Shooting Stars Mag said...

Sorry this one was so confusing and well, annoying. the swapping of boyfriends would have me rolling my eyes too. haha

Henrietta @ Leisure Reads said...

Hmm... the blurb did sound enticing. It seems to me that quite a number of reviewers shared similar sentiments. I can understand the frustration as I also prefer stories that offer us useful breadcrumbs instead of random details. Thanks for sharing your view with us!

Faye M. said...

Yeah, this one wasn't that great of a book to be honest. The romance made me cringe, and the dragging plot when I only wanted to know about what happened was so annoying. But it's true that I understood what Kyra was going through. I really felt sorry for her. Plus, the X-files-ish atmosphere was pretty chilling... in any case though, this was a 3 star read from me!

Faye at The Social Potato Reviews

Mel@Thedailyprophecy said...

I really liked Tyler, but not as boyfriend material. That was a very strange and unneeded twist, because I liked the overall plot and Kyra wasn't a bad character.

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