Taken by Erin Bowman

So far I'm doing pretty well on the two challenges I signed up for this year, as well as my overall reading goal. To be honest, I'm not all that concerned with my total reading numbers but I am definitely trying to make progress on the TBR mountain as a whole!

My April Debut Author Challenge pick is Erin Bowman's Taken, which officially hits shelves tomorrow. 

Almost fifty years ago, a group of kids woke to find themselves trapped together in a walled village. There were no adults - they would soon find that there was in fact no one over the age of seventeen - and with the exception of siblings, none of them knew one another. They'd assumed that some tragic event left them alone in their town and with no memories. From that point forward, they called their town Claysoot and did their best to make a life for themselves. One of the things they'd soon discover was the Heist, the disappearance of any male on his eighteenth birthday. A few brave souls would attempt to breach the wall over the years, but their charred remains were always discovered within days of their climb. 

Gray and his brother Blaine have only ever known life in Claysoot. Gray has planned everything carefully, avoiding situations that will make his own Heist harder. When Blaine is taken, Gray makes a startling discovery, one that will force him to attempt what no one before him has been able to do - climb the wall and survive. 

I'm on the fence about this one. It was a fun enough read, but nothing felt all that amazing or stand out about it. Instead, it was similar in a lot of ways to a variety of futuristic, dystopian releases of late, some of which have been more exciting and others that haven't. 

For me Taken was middle of the road. Bowman's writing is fine and the story is interesting enough to keep a reader going, but it's all a bit expected. There aren't any surprises - I could see just about everything in the story coming along the way.

Rating 3/5