#Review - Collide (The Taking #3) by Melissa West #YA #SyFy

Series: The Taking # 3
Format: Paperback, 238 pages
Release Date: January 28th 2015
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Source: Library Loan
Genre: YA / SyFy

Ari Alexander is now back on Earth, and the world she left behind has been turned upside down. A new leader has risen to power, her friends have become her enemies, and Jackson is thought to be trapped on Loge with her archrival, Zeus.
Now Ari must determine who is the true enemy before Zeus attacks and Earth is forced into a battle of the dominant species.

Will Ari and Jackson’s love give them the strength to survive the greatest war in human history?

Collide is the third installment in author Melissa West's The Taking series. Collide begins on Earth where we find Ari Alexander injured, drugged and disorientated about the events that took place in Hover. She has no idea where everyone is, especially Jackson who was taken by Zeus, but she soon learns that she's being held and tortured by Kelvin Lancaster, a lead chemist and the alleged new leader of Sydia. Imminent war is brewing with Zeus and Lancaster truly believes that Ari holds the key to defeating the Ancients.

While her parents are alive, they are pawns in a game between Lancaster and Ari to ensure her cooperation. Ari is blackmailed by Lancaster into traveling to each of the remaining bases that are actually working in order to train new operatives to become like her. Half Human, Half Ancient. Along for the ride are Jackson, Vil, Gretchen, Cybil and Ari's father Grexie, the former Commander. Vil and Gretchen are tech wizards, while Ari and Jackson are trained operatives. To make matters even more interesting, Ari now has new abilities thanks to Emmy. 

At each stop, Ari learns that the world she knew prior to being taken to Loge, has fundamentally changed for the worst. Half of Earth's defenses are offline. People are living underground. Parliament picked the people they wanted to survive, and thousands of humans are still dying either from the neurotoxin, or from Zeus and his people. Ari is being taunted every step of the way by Zeus who leaves her clues as to where he wants to face off in a final showdown. Ali was strong and determined in this book, and at points it seemed like she was fighting the war all on her own! 

She took on so much responsibility, and somehow managed to live up to expectations against the odds. We also have the arrival of yet another ingredient to the series. One that I won't spoil. Let's just say that I was honestly afraid that things would end badly for everyone involved. There is a whole lot of loss in this book, some which hits close to home for Ari. There is also the fact that Ari has all but forgiven Jackson for his prior mistakes, and now they make a formidable team that can stand up to any danger. 

The reason for my rating is that the ending battle is pretty much a let down. Yes, a new entity shows up, again, no spoilers. But the confrontation between Ari and Zeus falls flat. There was also Lawrence, but this part is a real spoiler. So, I'll say this, was Ari and Jackson hard on him? Yes. Did he deserve it? Yes, and no, especially when you find out what really happened. I also feel for Ari's father. Even though he was a real piece of work in the first installment, had it not been for his training of Ari, she would never had the skills to face the challenges she did. 

Finally, I would recommend reading this series back to back. In fact, I am thinking about doing the same thing to other series which have either ended, or will end soon. 

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#Review - Hover (The Taking #2) by Melissa West #YA #SyFy

Series: The Taking # 2
Format: Paperback, 352 pages
Release Date: August 13, 2013
Publisher: Entangled: Teen
Source: Library Loan
Genre: Science Fiction, YA

Fans of the online favorite Gravity will be itching for the highly anticipated sequel that finds our heroine fighting for her life on a distant planet.

Hover by Melissa West

On Earth, seventeen-year-old Ari Alexander was taught to never peek, but if she hopes to survive life on her new planet, Loge, her eyes must never shut. Because in this world, pleasure is everything, held up by a ruling body that keeps their people in check by giving them what they want and closing their eyes to what's really happening around them. The only hope Loge has is to move its people to Earth, and they have a plan.

Thousands of humans crossed over to Loge after a poisonous neurotoxin released into Earth's atmosphere, nearly killing them. They sought refuge in hopes of finding a new life, but what they became were slaves, built to siege war against their home planet. That is, unless Ari and Jackson can stop them. But on Loge, nothing is as it seems…and no one can be trusted.

Hover is the second installment in author Melissa West's The Taking trilogy. After the events of the Taking, Commander designate Ari Alexander is now residing on the dying planet of Loge with the Ancients who she doesn’t trust and who don’t seem to trust her and Jackson Locke the boy who saved her but also betrayed her in not letting her know soon enough that Earth was in trouble. Unfortunately, due to the symbiotic relationship between the Ancients and the humans, many humans were also poisoned, Ari among them.

Ari, still reeling from the fall out back on Earth, is now part Ancient thanks to Jackson and now has to deal with the powerful Zeus Castello. The maniacal leader, Zeus, is dangerous and he continues to threaten the humans on Earth. With the former President of the Parliament replaced with someone else, Ari is given an impossible task from the leaders on Earth. She must kill Zeus in order to save humanity. Zeus literally has many humans who fled to Loge in order to remain alive. 

Now, they are pawns in a much bigger game and Ari must find a way to survive until she can find allies who are willing to help her return to Earth. As this is a new world, readers are introduced to a new cast of characters including Mami, Emmi and Vill. Zeus is the villain you never know what he's going to do next. We get to see what a crazy evil guy he is and the way he treated everyone around him and his plans for Ari if she survives his brutal training. While Zeus is the leader of the Ancients, it appears that some, like Emmi are looking towards Ari to help them survive and get away from Loge before it's too late.

As this is the bridge to the finale of the series, Ari has to work things out with Jackson because there's really no alternative. He's had her back for awhile now, from the moment she opened her eyes in the first book. And, yes, while he may have left out some important clues as to what's coming for Earth, he continues to be there to save her life even at the expense of being brutalized by her own grandfather. Ari proves that she can be a leading character, but her journey is far from finished thanks to a cliffhanger of an ending which leads back to Earth.

At this point, I am happy that the library was able to borrow this book and the finale from another library so that I could read them back to back without waiting for another year to see what happens. Review for third book shortly!

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#Revew - Gravity (The Taking #1) by Melissa West #YA #SyFy #Dystopian

Series: The Taking # 1
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.

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