BOOK REVIEW: Untaken by J. E. Anckorn

Cover linked to Goodreads!

My rating: ★★★

Genre: Young Adult, Post-Apocalypse

Publication Date: March 23, 2015

Synopsis from Goodreads:

It turns out that a real alien invasion is nothing like the Sci-fi shows 14-year-old Gracie loves. Not when it’s your own family who are swallowed whole by those big silver ships. Not if it could be you next.

In her search for her family, Gracie meets Brandon, a high school dropout who would never have been caught dead hanging out with a dork like Gracie before the world ended. Gracie isn’t too crazy about Brandon either, but he has one thing she doesn’t: A plan.

Brandon’s uncle has a cabin up in Maine, and If Gracie and Brandon can survive long enough to get there they can hide out until the Space Men pack up their ships and leave.
Until the army guys come to rescue them, says Brandon.
Brandon is big into army guys.

Gracie has to admit that Brandon’s Awesome Plan probably would have worked out great if wasn’t for Jake.
They found 5-year-old Jake, laying half-dead under the remains of someone’s ranch house. He’s a good kid, even if he won’t-or can’t- talk.

But Jake has a secret, and when Gracie finds out what it is, the fragile new life they’ve started to forge looks set to break apart.

When the people you’ve been counting on to put the world back together start hunting you down, alien invaders are the least of your worries.

My review:

Copy was provided by Curiosity Quills Press in exchange for an honest review.

I thought I would like this book very much because the synopsis sounded great to me. It felt like it was similar to Angelfall by Susan Ee which is my favorite post-apocalypse book. The cover is absolutely gorgeous too.

The story started pretty okay. The main characters each had a back story. Gracie is a 14 year old nerd girl. She’s into stuff like the alien invasion and she had an online community where she talks about those stuffs with other people. Knowing that she’s into alien invasion, I expected her to know a few stuffs about survival. I’m into post-apocalypse books right now and I have picked up a few information on how to survive one. But Gracie? She doesn’t know how to survive and she has to constantly depend to Brandon. While Gracie is a 14 year old girl who talks like she’s younger, Brandon is a teenaged boy who talks like he’s an adult. It may be because of his upbringing but still. It’s like the characters are inconsistent.

There is also never a clear image of what really happened. Where is the government? How about the other survivors? The pacing of this book is so slow that I thought I would never finish this book. There is nothing interesting that is happening for like almost half of the book. Fortunately there is a kid that is one of the main characters and he kind of interests me so I kept reading.

If you’re into gross alien stuff then you may like this book, it’s one of the things that appealed to me. It’s also kind of scary if this book would happen in real life.

If you haven’t read any post-apocalypse books before then you may like this one and also if you’re into gross alien stuff. You can watch a different kind of review about this book below from one of my favorite booktubers! 🙂