Taken - Erin Bowman

Young Adult
Pages: 368
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: April 16, 2013
Goodreads / Amazon

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 don't quite know how to even begin to review this novel. I was looking forward to reading it from the moment I saw the awesome cover (should know better by now, right?) so when I started it, my hopes were up. They were not squished right away, though. Up until the moment they escaped, it was tolerable. From that point on it simply plummeted. To the point where I literally had to drag myself through the pages. The heist was such an interesting premise that I was surprised to find such a dull, predictable and altogether poorly thought-out plot behind it.

I wont even mention the fact that this is one of the worst characters I've read, and not just because he's a douche--I can live with that. In fact I have several books I love where the male character is simply unlikeable and it works. But in this case, he was just insufferable and there was no aspect of him that could be redeemed. Nothing that could make you think he was a character worth reading. And I have to say, in all my years of reading, that was a first.

The romance left me in awe. Were we supposed to buy the fact that Emma and Gray were in love? Did anyone really buy it? Could anyone really love someone like Gray? The world was simply a stereotypical dystopia where--bum bum bum-- nothing is what it seems *snort*. Twists were so abundant that you can't even remember what the first twist was by the end. There was more world-building in Claysoot that there was in the actual world where this takes place.

I just won't keep going because none of what I have to say is very good. This is the most bipolar book I've read, like the plot doesn't even agree with itself. I will just end this letting you know that there are a bunch of my blogger friends who did enjoy it, so I encourage you to read other reviews before deciding.