Taken

.span style = 'font-weight:bold'>Gr 8 Up—Every boy in Claysoot is taken just after midnight the morning he turns 18 in what the villagers call the Heist. Every one, that is, except Gray. He and his brother, Blaine, are exactly one year apart in age, and when Blaine vanishes in a flash of light, Gray is grieved but unsurprised. However, the discovery of a letter left behind by his mother leads him to search through his own medical records where he discovers that he was not Blaine's younger brother but his twin. Compelled to learn the truth behind the Heist and the wall that surrounds his village, Gray and Emma, the daughter of the town medic, escape into the outside world-a world in which resources are scarce, rebels wage war against city dwellers, and allies are not what they seem. Although the characters are not particularly loyal or noble, they are very human and sympathetic for their flaws. The cliff-hanger ending, which finds Gray heading out into the wilderness in search of other walled communities, guarantees a sequel. Riding the popular wave of dystopian fiction, debut novelist Bowman has created a dramatic work that is reminiscent of Lois Lowry's The Giver (Houghton Mifflin, 1993) and will appeal to fans of Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) and Lauren Oliver's Delirium (HarperCollins, 2011).—Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage Public Library, AK