Title: The Taker
Author: Alma Katsu
ISBN: 9781439197059
No. of Pages: 448
Genre: Horror
Origins: Mine. All mine.
Release Date: 6 September 2011
Synopsis:
“On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural St. Andrew, Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting a quiet evening. Until a mysterious woman arrives in his ER, escorted by police—Lanore McIlvrae is a murder suspect—and Luke is inexplicably drawn to her. As Lanny tells him her story, an impassioned account of love and betrayal that transcends time and mortality, she changes his life forever. . . . At the turn of the nineteenth century, when St. Andrew was a Puritan settlement, Lanny was consumed as a child by her love for the son of the town’s founder, and she will do anything to be with him forever. But the price she pays is steep—an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate for eternity.”
My Thoughts: I have a confession. I finished The Taker a month ago; yet, when I went to write this review just a week ago, I did not remember anything about this book until I read the synopsis again. Now that I remember the story, I know I really enjoyed it. The story is dark and disturbing. It covers such themes as forgiveness, revenge, and guilt. There is no extreme cliffhanger to anger readers but enough unanswered questions and potential red herrings to draw readers to the rest of the series. Still, I could not remember a single thing without the synopsis right in front of me.
I do remember finding Luke too vanilla and completely undeveloped. Lanny is a manipulative little bitch, which I like, but she passes herself off as an innocent ingenue, which I detest. It is the person responsible for Lanny’s immortality that is my favorite character, and someone I hope to see more often in the sequel. The darkness of the human mind is always a fascinating study, and his behavior is so depraved and extreme that there is so much fodder for that study. His rationale for his behavior, his origins – all of it are still unknown at the end of The Taker, which should provide plenty of opportunity for more exploration of his development.
Still, I cannot remember his name without searching for it online or opening my copy of the book and finding it. The fact that the story completely disappeared from my memory in a few weeks is bothersome because I know I tore through the novel. I can only conclude that The Taker is one of those novels that is a fast and entertaining read but one that has no lasting power, unfortunately.
BOTTOM LINE: I still enjoyed it even though it fades from memory way too quickly.
