Review: Taken by Erin Bowman

Title: Taken (Taken, #1)

Author: Erin Bowman

Publisher: HarperTeen 

Publication date: April 16, 2013

Genre(s): Young Adult (Sci-Fi/Dystopia)

Source: Publisher

Format: eARC

Pages: 352

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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?

As soon as I read Taken, I immediately fell in love with the synopsis of this book. In Claysoot, there will be no male that is older than 18 years old. Every midnight of every boy's 18th birthday, they get heisted. "Heisted" is the term they use when suddenly the ground shakes and that certain boy vanishes. It's such a mystery, and I was just so excited to find out more about the story behind it. Gray, the main protagonist, is a 17 year old boy living in Claysoot. Gray's brother Blaine is 18 years old, and is soon to be Heisted. The world building in this book was very fascinating to read about. In Claysoot, everyone has to fight and hunt for what they need. Every boy also get's assigned to a girl, who they hang out with for a bit, and then might get assigned to another. Claysoot is also surrounded by a Wall, and who ever tries climbing out always comes back dead. 

When Blaine get's heisted, Gray is left with a mystery to be solved. Reading a paper that his mother wrote to Blaine about him, Gray is itching for answers. We also meet Emma, who is their childhood friend. When Gray and Emma both start questioning the world they've always known, they end up with answers that lead them to even more questions. As the story unfolds, we really get to know Gray more as a character, and I gotta say it was very fun reading a book from a boy's POV. Trying not to spoil anything, I'm just going to say that we also get to meet more characters, and a certain character that I loved as well! I have to say that the romance wasn't heavy in this one, but I honestly dont' find that a major problem for me. They were to busy kicking-butt to have time for anything else! 

Overall, Taken is a fast read that will leave you crazy for answers. The characters were fun to get to know, and Erin Bowman's writing was great as well! Like most dystopian books, I cannot WAIT to find out what happens in the next book! Readers of The Hunger Games and Slated would probably enjoy this one a lot!