Taken by Erin Bowman

Title: Taken (Taken #1)
Author: Erin Bowman
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: April 16th 2013
Source: Edelweiss
Format: egalley

Rating: 3.5/5

Buy on: Amazon | B&N | BookDepository

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?

I liked Taken, I feel that the story flows, there are no dull moments, but it is a bit predictable, especially the first part of the book, the mystery of that first part I saw it coming miles away, but outside the big reveal, I liked the following parts of the plot. The book is divided into four parts and each part follows the protagonist of the story through his journey.

The book is told from the point of view of Gray a seventeen years old (I know I sound like a broken record, but I prefer books from the male point of view) he lines in Claysoot, a walled town and the story begins the day before his seventeen birthday and his older brother Blaine eighteen birthday and the brothers are somewhat resigned to their destiny, that this will be their last day together, since in Claysoot all men are heisted at eighteen and  never heard from them again, so there are no older men in the village and this is a fact that people see as part of life and to some extent they accept it. Something that I found curious is how the people organize for reproduction.

About the characters ... Gray is the main character of the story has its pros and cons, he´s impulsive, explosive, short tempered, is a little selfish and take many bad decisions, he's actually a character with many flaws and that has no intention of being a hero, but it is precisely his imperfection that made him believable, Gray has many reactions that I saw real, he doesn´t considers himself as a hero, he considers himself the black sheep, for everybody the good brother, the considerate, good-natured, that everybody likes is Blaine and Gray doesn´t try to pretend to be something that he isn´t.

So Gray Weathersby is not your typical protagonist, there's actually a scene that I didn´t like, where he hits a girl ..... just because she´s annoying (according to Gray) (my review is based on an ARC, so I hope that that scene is not in the final book).

But overall, I liked the plot even if it was a little predictable at the beginning of the book, after that the plot has many interesting twists and some unexpected romantic turns. Taken is a book that falls into the genre post-apocalyptic/distopic with romance, action, some mystery, the plot is interesting and leaves a lot of questions that I hope will be resolved in the next book and I want to know what happens with the love triangle.

Thank you very much to HarperTeen via Edelweiss for providing this egalley for review.

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