Early Review: The Taking by Kimberly Derting

Title: The Taking
Author: Kimberly Derting
Series: The Taking #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: April 29, 2014
Source: eARC
Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

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?

My Thoughts:

Kimberly Derting has been one of my favorite authors for a very long time. I’m a huge fan of The Body Finder series and even though The Pledge wasn't that great for me, I was super excited when I found out she was releasing a new series! The Taking was literally the first book that I read this year! I was so excited about my ARC that I couldn't wait to dive right in.

The Taking is about a sixteen year old girl named Kyra who, after a softball game, suddenly disappears without a trace. She wakes up behind the dumpster of her local gas station 5 years later but it feels like the next morning to her. She’s still wearing her softball uniform and hasn't aged a day. Soon, a mysterious stranger starts showing up everywhere she goes and Kyra soon discovers that there is a lot more behind her disappearance than she originally thought.

Even though Kyra is a good main character I didn't feel all that emotionally attached to her. Everything that happens, her disappearance and reappearance, all happens so fast in the very beginning that you don’t really get a chance to become attached to the life that she had before. Most of the story is her struggle with accepting that everyone has moved on without her. We, the readers, don’t get the chance to know the Kyra before, we only know the person that Kyra becomes after she resurfaces.

I really enjoyed the relationship between Kyra and Tyler who incidentally is her “before” boyfriend’s younger brother. Since five years has now passed, Tyler is one year older than Kyra. They become really close throughout the book, both trying to figure out what happened to her. Tyler is really super cute! He always admired his older brother's girlfriend and now here she is, she hasn't aged a day and he has the chance to actually get to know her! I really like that he kind of always held a candle for her!

The plotting and the pacing of the book were a little bit slow at times, especially in the middle but it really kicks up towards the end, making me hopeful that book two will be an action-packed adventure. There was also a bit of a cliffhanger at the end which made me really excited! I don’t generally like cliffhangers but this one made me really anticipate the rest of the series! Oh, and since I wasn't super obvious about it, it’s about aliens which we definitely don’t have enough of in YA right now.

The Taking was a really great book to start the year off with and now in just a couple of weeks everyone can enjoy it as well! Not only was it a great start to a really exciting new series, it can really appeal to those readers who are new to sci-fi!

Waiting on Wednesday (111)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Brazen
Author: Katherine Longshore
Hitting the Shelves: June 12, 2014

Mary Howard has always lived in the shadow of her powerful family. But when she’s married off to Henry Fitzroy, King Henry VIII’s illegitimate son, she rockets into the Tudor court’s inner circle. Mary and “Fitz” join a tight clique of rebels who test the boundaries of court’s strict rules with their games, dares, and flirtations. The more Mary gets to know Fitz, the harder she falls for him, but is forbidden from seeing him alone. The rules of court were made to be pushed…but pushing them too far means certain death. Is true love worth dying for?

Why I want this: I loved Gilt and Tarnish! I also love that you don't have to have read the books before to know what is going on in the current book! So great! Lovers of historical fiction should pick these up immediately! 

March 2014 Book Haul!

Hey there! Welcome to this week's Stacking the Shelves! This awesome meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and we get to show each other the books we acquired this week whether bought, from the library or for review!

Thanks for stopping by my blog and checking out the books that have somehow come into my possession this month!

Purchased: 

The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas

Half Bad by Sally Green

Teen Spirit by Francesca Lia Block

Let the Sky Fall by Shannon Messanger

The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

For Review: 

Wings by Elizabeth Richards

Scan by Sarah Fine

Embers and Ash by T.M. Goeglein

Library: 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima

Asylum by Madeleine Roux

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

A huge thank you to Putnam & Sons for the review books! 

What Does the Bookworm Say? Favorite TV Shows

I'm so excited for this topic because I watch a lot of TV. Let's just be honest! Watching TV is so easy and there is just so much to watch! I don't have cable or anything so maybe I don't watch as much as I think or as much as I could. Here are some of my favorites:

1. Resurrection: This show just started on ABC so if you haven't watched it yet you can probably catch up on all the episodes on Hulu! I really love this new show because it's so mysterious! There is so much going on and so many unanswered questions already! I hope enough people watch it so that it will stay around for a few more seasons.

2. The Mindy Project: One of my favorite comedies right now is The Mindy Project! For some reason I love all things Mindy Kaling and I think she's just incredible! It's only in the second season but I'm so excited for where it's going and I can't wait for it to come back this week!!

3. Downton Abbey: I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Downton Abbey! I watch this with my mom and sister and we can't get enough! Even though not a lot is going on, I've become attached to the characters and I pretty much hope the show never ends! And Maggie Smith is brilliant, as always!

4. Criminal Minds: I've watch Criminal Minds since day 1 and have loved it ever since! There's just something about serial killers that fascinates me! I especially love the episodes that are really violent and bloody but I don't know why!

5. Scandal: I LOVE SCANDAL! There's so much DRAMA!! I really hate it when people cheat on each other but for some reason I'm always rooting for Olivia Pope and Fitz! Maybe because the First Lady is so scheming and underhanded.  But it's so good and I am wrapped every week!

Honorable Mention: Parks and Recreaction, The Black List and Gray's Anatomy

Don't forget to check out the other bookworms and see what they like to watch: Thuy @ Nite Lite Reviews, Kimberly @ The Windy Pages and Nicole @ The Reader's Antidote. 

Waiting on Wednesday (110)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: The Girl From the Well
Author: Rin Chupeco
Hitting the Shelves: August 05, 2014

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out.

The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as "Dexter" meets "The Grudge", based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.

Why I want this: Anything that is pitched as "Dexter" meets whatever else, I'm totally on board! This books sounds so awesome and definitely creepy!!

Review: Black City by Elizabeth Richards

Title: Black City

Author: Elizabeth Richards

Series: Black City #1

Publisher: Putnam's Sons BYR

Source: Library

Find it Here: Amazon, Goodreads

A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-old Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

My Thoughts:

Since I already own an ARC of Phoenix and just received an ARC of the final book in the trilogy Wings I thought that it’s probably high time that a write a review for Black City. I was a little hesitant going into this book because I had heard it was about vampires and we all know that the whole vampire thing is way overdone in YA lit!

Looking back, I’m glad I've waited so long to write this review. I've read a few vampire novels since Black City and they all fell flat for me and has made me realize how unique this vampire story really is. While checking out my Goodreads account, I noticed that I gave this book 3 start just after I finished reading it. After my year of retrospection of vampire novels, this book definitely deserves 4 stars.

Black City starts off really, really strong! It’s super action-packed right off the bat which reeled me immediately! But then towards the middle it starts to drag a bit and get a little boring. And then at the end it gets really good again! I feel like I’m describing a trilogy all in one book!!

Even though it has a little insta-love, I still really loved the relationship between the two main characters. As far as world building, I really enjoyed the uniqueness of the vampires and/or darklings and how they’re depicted as a separate species. It’s all very interesting and something I want to read more about. Black City is one of the better vampire novels out there in YA literature!

Waiting on Wednesday (109)

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we are eagerly anticipating. This is one of my favorite memes because not only is my TBR pile so much bigger at the end of the night but also the covers are always amazing!

Title: Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend
Author: Katie Finn
Hitting the Shelves: May 13, 2014

Summer, boys, and friendships gone sour. This new series has everything that perfect beach reads are made of!

Gemma just got dumped and is devastated. She finds herself back in the Hamptons for the summer—which puts her at risk of bumping into Hallie, her former best friend that she wronged five years earlier. Do people hold grudges that long?

When a small case of mistaken identity causes everyone, including Hallie and her dreamy brother Josh, to think she’s someone else, Gemma decides to go along with it.

Gemma's plan is working (she's finding it hard to resist Josh), but she's finding herself in embarrassing situations (how could a bathing suit fall apart like that!?). Is it coincidence or is someone trying to expose her true identity? And how will Josh react if he finds out who she is?

Katie Finn hits all the right notes in this perfect beginning to a new summer series: A Broken Hearts & Revenge novel.

Why I want this: When May and June roll around, this is the type of book that I want to read! It helps put me in the summer mood and they're so much fun. Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend sounds like a really great read!