Format: Kindle, 306 pages
Release Date: October 30th 2012
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Amazon
Genre: Dystopian / Science Fiction
In the future, only one
rule will matter: Don't. Ever. Peek. Seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander
just broke that rule and saw the last person she expected hovering above
her bed -- arrogant Jackson Locke, the most popular boy in her school.
She expects instant execution or some kind of freak alien punishment,
but instead, Jackson issues a challenge: help him, or everyone on Earth
will die. Ari knows she should report him, but everything about Jackson
makes her question what she's been taught about his kind. And against
her instincts, she's falling for him. But Ari isn't just any girl, and
Jackson wants more than her attention. She's a military legacy who's
been trained by her father and exposed to war strategies and societal
information no one can know--especially an alien spy, like Jackson.
Giving Jackson the information he needs will betray her father and her
country, but keeping silent will start a war.
Gravity is the first installment in author Melissa West's The Taking trilogy. In a near future, Earth will have destroyed itself and billions of humans will have died thanks to power and greed in what's being called World War IV. The Ancients bailed out Earth and in return humans must enable them to habituate their bodies to Earth so they can cohabit the planet. The aliens would help rebuild the world as well as providing food while humans would give their antibodies to the aliens (otherwise they wouldn't be able to survive on Earth) as well as water.
Earth was then divided in nations such as Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe, and Australian destroyed itself. Each nation has a central president and the presidency is passed down by blood. Ari and her family live in a place called Sydia which is the capital of the Americas. Thanks to the Treaty of 2090 between Zeus and the leaders of Earth, each human is assigned an Ancient arriving from Loge to become hosts. Each night, 17-year-old Ari Alexander must put on a patch that paralyzes them, and allows the Ancient assigned to them to enter their bedroom for The Taking.
One night Ari loses her patch and opens her eyes to see her classmate Jackson Locket hoovering above her. Ancients are not supposed to be living undercover and she knows she should report him to her father, The Commander, but first she wants to get answers from him. Jackson explains that he needs her help because his people are ready to acclimate and live among the humans, and if earth does not agree, war will ensue. Soon Ari finds herself mired in a treacherous situation. Who does she trust? Jackson the Ancient or her father? Is everything she has been taught her entire life a lie?
Are the Ancients out to destroy humanity, or will humanity destroy itself? Since Ari is the daughter of the Commander she has had to train in combat and military tactics all her life because she is supposed to be the next Commander. She's top of her class in almost all areas of guns, fist fights, and basic ops. The downside is that Ari is supposed to marry the President's son, Lawrence, to enable a very strong leadership/partnership but how can Ari trust anyone in leadership when she learns what Parliament plans to those Ancients living on Earth?
She finds herself entangled in things that quickly spiral out of control when the leaders of Earth do something really stupid which makes me want to scream. I genuinely hate scientists, and there's literally a million people on this planet that died because of scientists who screwed around and caused the Pandemic we are currently dealing with. Her father was a cold piece of work most of the time, but her mother genuinely cares enough to break rules in order to save her daughter.
The book does end on a cliffhanger which you should expect since this is the first book in the trilogy. I admit that I took way too long in starting and finishing this book, and now I need the next two books to cross another series off my bucket list.
Oh nice! I think I have the first two books of this series on my TBR pile. Thinking tracking down book 3 might be difficult now. Lol. This still sounds as exciting as I thought it did the first time! Hopefully I can get to it soon! Nice review!
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