A review by readingoverbreathing
Taken by Erin Bowman

3.0

"I want the truth the way I crave to breathe. It is subconscious and it plagues me."

I won this book in an Epic Reads giveaway probably about five years ago now, and it has sat at the bottom of my stack of unread books since then. However, after all this time, I have finally, finally made my way through that pile, and, boy, does it feel good, almost surreal, honestly. Overall, I was surprised by how much I ultimately enjoyed this, how much it stood through time. My expectations were low, but they have certainly been surmounted.

I definitely would have loved this more if I had read it when it initially came into my possession, but, regardless, I did still have a good time. The beginning was the best for me, when we were still in Claysoot and had little to no answers yet. Bowman does an excellent job of building the curiosity and suspense there, and I found the whole concept of the Heist, while admittedly very typical YA, to be intriguing.

Once we moved on, however, this started to feel like a book I've read before, one I've read many, many iterations of across this genre. I wasn't a fan of some of the pacing

Spoiler

(the part where Gray must survive with an injured Blaine in the wilderness, for example),

and to be honest, I also grew to dislike some of the characters. Gray I could forgive, but he wasn't my favorite, and from the beginning I could not stand Emma, and I really didn't get Gray's infatuation with her, and thus was pretty pleased with

Spoiler

the love triangle with Bree that was introduced later on.

I'm not really feeling that motivated to carry on with this series, but as far as mid-2010s YA dystopian fiction goes, I was relatively impressed with this one. Perhaps it was the rush from finally demolishing that stack of unread books in my dormer, but I did have a good time reading this. It was quick and relatively interesting, and sometimes that's all you want from a little YA.