The Taker by Alma Katsu
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I did not like this book. I read the back cover of the third book and it sounded really good, right up my alley, but it is a trilogy that must be read in order so I checked out book one, The Taker.
The main character, Lanny, becomes obsessed with the prettiest boy, Jonathon, in her town/village. Since no one else seems to like him because he’s so beautiful, the two become friends. Jonathon is the town playboy, he pretty much sleeps with whatever woman he wants, whether or not they are married but for some reason Lanny thinks that she is the only one for him and if he will just give her the time of day he will love her back. Jonathon ends up having sex with Lanny and gets her pregnant, but of course he can’t marry her because his family is the richest in the area and hers isn’t. He marries someone else and she is sent away to have the baby. She ends up in Boston and is brought to the house of Adair, who is an immortal, and he gives her a potion to make her immortal because she is beautiful and he collects beautiful people and changes them. She miscarries because of the change but for some reason is only angry about that for a short time before she ends up in Adair’s bed, which is another stupid move because he had drugged her initially and let her be gang raped. Then she pretty much sleeps with everyone else in the house and then whoever else she can find in Boston. The entire situation is supposed to be a sexual awakening kind of moment for Lanny, but it reads as just too pathetic and her character doesn’t change at all. She is still obsessed with Jonathon and when Adair sends her to change Jonathon and bring him back she agrees. Jonathon has a child now and his father is dead so it’s his responsibility to take care of the business and the people who work for him. He is still married but jumps into bed with Lanny as soon as he can, but he is also sleeping with another woman at the same time and whos husband finds out and shoots him. Lanny changes him right then and leaves town with him. To say he isn’t happy is an understatement but he can’t get away from Adair. Lanny finds out that Adair is a sorcerer or something and plans to switch bodies with Jonathon so she gives Adair a very strong sleeping drug and runs away with Jonathon. But the two don’t stay together and don’t see each other for close to two hundred years when Jonathon finally e-mails her and says he wants to see their old town again. They travel there and, of course, sleep together then he asks her to kill him because he fell in love but the woman died and he just can’t take it anymore. She kills him, gets arrested, and ends up in a hospital with a doctor, Luke, who she has been telling the story too the entire book. (It switches from present day to the past and back almost every chapter) Luke helps her escape and takes her over the border to Canada where they stop at a hotel for the night and, you guessed it, have sex.
I struggled to finish this book because I really hoped that it would get better but it only got worse. Most of the characters seemed to be drug addicts and only interested in sex and who they could have sex with next. Lanny was too selfish and only cared about herself and what she wanted for me to be sympathetic to anything that happened to her. Supposedly in the last two books Adair shows up again and says that if she will stay with him that he will bring Jonathon back from the dead. I have no intention of reading the other books because I just can’t take hearing Lanny whine about her love for Jonathon(who never loved her back) and how mean Adair is and how Luke is the only one who has ever understood her. Usually I can find something that I liked about a book but it would take me a long time to figure it out with this one.
The Dark Library 