Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking (The Taking, #1)

Author: Kimberly Derting

Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: April 29, 2014

Genre(s): YA (Sci-Fi/Aliens/contemporary/????)

Source: Edelweiss

Format: eARC

Pages: 368

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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?

I've read Kimberly Derting's The Pledge trilogy and really enjoyed it. Knowing that I went ahead and requested The Taking because it has two of my favorite things, memory loss, and mystery. Of course this book is labeled as science fiction, paranormal, aliens.. but I feel it has a very contemporary feel. and I must confess.. I loved it. I feel that Derting can write an amazing contemporary novel and I am hoping she'll do that soon! Anyways back to The Taking, I thought this novel can't be confined to one genre.. it is exactly like The Pledge.. where it has historical and dystopian elements along with political and 100 other! This is why I love Derting's books, they are thoroughly thought out, intricate in the details, and very unique. 

Kyra wakes up in the back of a gas station mart with no idea how she got there. Turns out she's been missing for five years but without aging a single day. She's still in her softball uniform from the last day she remembers, hair ribbons, dirt stains and all but everyone has moved on.. five years in the future exactly. Austin, her boyfriend, is now at university and clearly moved on and Tyler, his younger brother, is now 17 years old, a year older than her! All this mystery and head scratching was totally addicting. I couldn't put the book down and kept on flipping the pages as quickly as I could. It was really hard seeing how everything has changed in those five years and I really felt bad for Kyra. However the developing friendship between her and Tyler was just so adorable and heartwarming. I love Tyler so much! We all should demand a neighbor/friend/potential more? like him in our lives! I thought this side of the story was written impeccably by Derting. The romance didn't feel forced or overpowering, or too slow, too fast.. it was just perfect (hence my comment about her potentially being an amazing contemporary writer!). 

The non-contemporary aspect of the novel was subtle at the beginning but prevailed in the second half of the novel and that was when everything went to crap, in the craziness full blown out, everything that could go wrong went wrong sense. I loved it! It was such a thrilling read! And on top of all that, The Taking even made me cry! See what I mean by the author combining and weaving so many different genres in a novel? Towards the end is when we get 10% of our questions answered but don't count on being able to figure out the whole novel because even after finishing it, I still have about 100 questions which is why I am SO SO excited for the sequel and will sell a percentage of my soul if I could get it early! What I am basically saying is this is a time where you need to take my recommendation seriously and go out and BUY the book because you're going to want to re-read it, trust me.