The Taking by Kimberly Derting (ARC)

The Taking (The Taking, #1)
Kimberly Derting
Exp. Pub.: April 29, 2014 (TOMORROW!!!)

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?

Do you heart that? It's the theme song to the X-Files. And you might think twice about capturing fireflies from now on.

Kyra had everything going for her. Perfect boyfriend, awesome best friend, happy family and college scouts lining up to watch her pitch. But with a flash of bright white, it all goes away. It's suddenly five years later and Kyra wakes up next to a dumpster with the same dingy softball uniform on and a charge on her out of service cell phone. There's a strange man living in her house with her mom, a new kid brother, her boyfriend is now living the life they planned with her best friend, and her father, who witnessed her little disappearing act, is totally whackado. Oddly enough, the only comfort she finds is in her ex-boyfriend's little brother Tyler, whose all grown up now and technically a year older than she is now. But if Kyra thought she could just come back and try to reclaim her life, she was sadly mistaken. An NSA agent is constantly hounding her, a strange guy is following her everywhere she goes, and weird things are beginning to happen her physically - things that aren't humanly possible. She needs to run, to disappear, but can she really let go of what tiny happiness she's managed to scrape together in a world without Tyler?

 

Oh, I loved this. Yeah, you could argue that the she abandons the thought of loving her ex and moving on to his brother rather quickly, but hell, when your world's that messed up, you need someone who'll treat you as if you never disappeared,who'll hold you and make you feel safe. Tyler's that person for Kyra, so I felt their budding romance was rather appropriate. And if I came back to a boyfriend who was now in love with my best friend, but wanted to drag out that nightmare by being friends - ugh! - I'd have no scruples over dating his little brother either.

If you like science fiction and alien abductions with a sweet romance, this one's worth picking up.
 

ARC provided by Harper Teen for honest review.