dangerousbeans 's review for:

The Taken by Inbali Iserles

2.5

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

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I’m so mad I didn’t read this book when I was younger, because it feels like it was written for a ten-year-old me. Urban foxes who can do magic??? Sign me up! The writing was a little basic to read as an adult, obviously, and the pacing dragged quite a bit at times, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it, especially the scene where

Siffrin transforms into Isla, and seeing her own double makes her freak out

and the moment at the end where

the wolf from the zoo comes back and saves her

. (I will admit, wolves are one of my absolute favourite animals, so I may be biased, but he was just SO COOL.) The plot twists are admittedly pretty obvious (to an adult), but still fun and exciting, and the kind of obvious that would make a kid excited to have guessed right, rather than make them think the characters are stupid. Another minor gripe is that Isla’s name seems to stick out, in comparison to the other foxes (Siffrin, Pirie) as weirdly human, and I found myself wishing she had a more “foxlike” name. I also wish that the “freedom” theme that Iserles leans into at the end with the zoo animals could have been explored a bit more — maybe showing the difference between urban and wild foxes, maybe Isla and her family could have taken food from humans? — but overall, a very fun read and I’m looking forward to the rest of the series!