Taken by Erin Bowman

Taken is yet another Dystopian Teen book. In this one, the focus is on the village of Claysoot. It contains lots of women and children, but no men over the age of 18. This is because once the men turn 18, they are taken from the village in the Heist. This is just one of the facts of life in Claysoot.

Gray's older brother, Blaine, was just taken. Afterwards, Gray finds a note from his deceased mother to Blaine. It hints at a secret that she was keeping about Gray, a secret having to do with the Heist. Claysoot is a town surrounded by a high wall. Many have tried to climb the wall, but they all come back as a burned corpse. Gray knows that he has to try because the answers he seeks are on the other side. He ends up finding out answers about himself, Claysoot, the Heist, and much more.

I enjoyed Taken a lot. The writing is very nice, even moving me to tears during Gray and Blaine's goodbye before Blaine is taken. Gray is a bit of a hothead. I didn't dislike him (Except for one very notable exception near the end. You know what you did, Gray, and it sucked), but his temper and impulsive decisions made it difficult to like him sometimes. I wasn't that excited by a lot of the developments near the end of the book, but I'm still willing to give the next book in this series a chance.

I received my copy of Taken from Edelweiss, courtesy of HarperTeen. It's available for purchase now.