Book review: THE TAKER

What would you do if one day you'll receive the gift called - immortality? Would you consider it as a blessing or a course?

Alma Katsu: The taker (2011.) Publisher: Algoritam 409 pages Croatian translation: Slavica Butorac

One night, during Luke Findley's night shift in St. Andrew Hospital , one dead body and it's suspect murderer arrive to ER. The corpse belongs to unknown young man, while the suspect for the murder is fragile young girl. But - she has no body hurts. And she can't be wounded, which drives a lot of Luke's curiosity. He starts the conversation with the girl and she is revealing him her life story. And that story is far away from short, she is not young actually. She is more than 200 years old. Luke has no idea that she is going to change his life forever, in direction with no turning back.

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Lenore McIlvrae is 12 years old girl living in small town in St. Andrew., Maine, USA, in the beginning of XIX. century. She is madly in love with handsome guy named Jonathan St.Andrew. Well, his family owns the town, that's way his last name comes from, obviously. Lenore is not the only one. Any other girl in town is also in love with Jonathan. Handsome, wealthy young guy. Who is he going to marry? Will his parents approve the marriagewith the girl he chose? This premises makes him untouchable. Until Lenore approaches him and they start friendship full of kisses and hopes for a little ray of love from Jonathan's side. But Jonathan is so obviously showing to her that he is just not that into her. After all, there are many fishes in the sea, I mean, St.Andrew.

Recently after the tragedy of one woman with whom Jonathan had an affair, Lenore founds out that she is pregnant. But Jonathan's family just arranged him marriage. To keep her from shame, family sends Lenore to Boston. There she should restart her life in monastery and get rid of the child. And Lenore is not following her parent's advice.

Arriving to Boston, Lenore a.k.a. Lenny ends up with eccentric squad leaded by wealthy man Adair, who is presenting himself as a count of small Eastern European country. But is he really that? After one night full of torture, Lenny wakes up .She is supposed to be dead. She woke up instead. Without baby. Without feeling of appetite, cold, warm, drunk... Her life becomes series of going to theatre every night. Meeting and hanging up with Boston's ~creme~de~la~creme. Eating the best food, wearing the prettiest dresses made from exotic materials, lavish jewelry. And enjoying the good nice reputation of being courtisane. Looks like nothing in her life is missing. Except - love. And not anybody's love. Jonathan's love.

Adair soon founds out that the reason of Lenny's mental absence lies in love for another man. So he sends her back to her hometown, to bring the source - Jonathan to him. Is Lenore capable to do this sacrifice? To bring the love of her life to tyrant.

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In the meantime, Lenny asks Luke to help her to run away. In the meantime, she offers him the whole new life, far away from small town, broken marriage and sad memories of his mother's loss. Luke has a lot to lose but a lot new world to discover. He just need to run away from police and authorities with suspect for the homicide. The risk is very big bite for him.

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The Taker comes from the pen of Alma Katsu, american writer of adult fiction, and is so far her most famous book. She received a lot of success with her book The Hunger. The Taker is first book of trilogy which contains sequences The Devil's scribe, The Reckoning, The Witch's sisters, The Descent and The marriage price.

Her writing style is often described as mix of Anne Rice and Elizabeth Kostova, which is manifested by spanning several lifetimes. Katsu herself claims that growing up in Concord, Massachusets, USA has yield a lot of interest in American history, which is very often present in her books.

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Before I read this book, I was in desperate need and mood for some gothic novel. So, I found this baby on the shelf in library and put it on the desk. And I must admit that it hasn't disappointed me. First part of the book is mostly wrapped in feelings of grief for unrequited love, so at some point I started to feel concerned with big question: is Lenore going to get over it and grow up. But that same grief and lust is going trough every chapter, which makes it somehow monotone.

In another part, finally something is happening - supernatural. Alchemy is on point. Becoming somebody after being a girl from small town lost in big city. Living life to it's fullest, because - you can't lose it. I got lost in Lenny's decadent lifestyle full of intrigues. Getting along with immortality, trying to escape Adair's tyranny and building the decent image in big city's society in the same time. This made me sticked to the book all the way to the last page.

And I knew that this book was ~the one~ when it left me with one question, as a bug in the ear:

What would you do if you will suddenly receive the gift called immortality?Would you consider it as a blessing or a course?

You can choose any career you want. You can change your identity. You can live wherever you want. Will you ever regret? Will you make the same mistakes? Rember - you can always restart when you find yourself in crisis But is that the price too high to to pay if you can't have the love of your life?