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FindingJane
Aug 18, 2014FindingJane rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
This novel is a taut, suspenseful read from the very first page. I have to admit that I was taken aback by it quite a few times. I’d thought that I was going to be reading about a society ruled entirely by women, much like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Herland” or Wen Spencer’s “A Brother’s Price”. But “Taken” is so much more than that, jolting me much as it does the main protagonist. Gray Weathersby is a curious, restless, impulsive truth seeker but his assumptions get continually challenged. Even when he thinks he’s grasped the truth, it slips out of his fingers. His journey is one that tasks him body and mind and it’s great to read how he stretches and grows beyond the rigid existence that he knew. The people around him also face challenges and their lives flesh out the book considerably. However, a few things nagged at me. When Gray is suspected of being a dangerous entity sent to spy on or murder the rebels, he’s given a hasty judgment by a kangaroo court that barely questions him before delivering sentence. Much later, he’s subjected to a thorough interrogation to prove his humanity. Why wasn’t the interrogation performed before the tribunal rather than after it? He would have been wrongfully executed if they’d judged him guilty. Also, Gray is angered by the Heist and horrified by the extremes of the totalitarian regime into which he falls. But when he learns that the rebels torture people for information, there isn’t so much as a flicker of anguish from him. In spite of his questioning of his narrow existence in Claysoot, Gray proves too eager to throw in his lot with the dissident faction and unwilling or unable to challenge their own bleak worldview. Murder, execution and torture occur in their world just as easily as in the fascist establishment he seeks to topple but he doesn’t say a word against it. He also proves fickle about his would-be girlfriend and yet quick to spurn her when she seems as fallible as himself. No one is perfect and Gray is as far from that as you can get. But a more balanced view would have made this a better book.