TAKE FLIGHT Review

After spending a summer abroad ghost hunting, Erin and Jeremy return to the states unsure of what they have discovered. Erin's new boyfriend turns out to be more trouble than she bargained for. She begins to learn all the fairy tales her father told her were more than just a tall tale. Will she be able to escape the clutches of Bastian or will she be indebted to him forever?
From kaytharris.com

Take Flight by Kayt Harris is the story of Erin, a teenage (?) girl who has returned from a ghost hunting trip with her friend Jeremy in Germany where she met the undeniable Bastian and the two became instantly a couple. After leaving Germany, Erin finds herself longing for Bastian once more, and thinks that she is seeing him everywhere.

Soon after her return, she begins to have odd dreams that feel real involving Bastian. Not only that, but Jeremy discovers a voice on one of their recorded tapes which provides a warning against Bastian. As the novels goes on, Erin realizes she is not as far away from Bastian as she once thought.

Alright, so who noticed the question mark I put next to the word "teenage"? Anyone? Raise your hand nice and high. There you go. Thought that was a mistake, right? Something I was suppose to fix when editing? Nope. My main issue with this novel was the fact that I couldn't tell what age the characters were. I believe that they were suppose to be in high school, though the book was written as though they were much older, our of college even. Many books published YA are adult authors writing from the perspective of a teenager, sounding like a teenager. This was a book written by an adult, in the perspective of a teenager, sounding like an adult.

Not to make an overused analogy here, but it's needed to address my argument. Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series in written very sophisticated for a teenage girl, but her writing works, as Bella has never truly been a teenage girl, always acting older than her age. In Take Flight, Erin sounds like an adult, and this does not work as well for Harris as it did for Meyer.

Unfortunately, this was not the only problem I had with the book. The book, on a whole, was very slow to begin and, once it did begin, came to a conclusion quickly, leaving about 20 pages for an extended conclusion. Despite the rest of the novel, the ending portion of the book was well done, and a lot more creative than the rest of the novel. If the author had used the ending of the book as the basis for what would happen, then it would have made it good.

Another thing I came across which is not the author's fault was the number of grammar errors. A forgotten quotation mark at the end of a paragraph of dialog, a paragraph that wasn't tabbed, little thing, but things that frustrate me nonetheless. To be fair, I did look up the publishing company, and they are small, only publishing a couple of titles each year.

Overall, the book seemed to drag on and I had trouble finishing it, despite the fact that it was only 176 pages and the font was larger than most books. In all honesty, the ending of the novel was the silver lining, but it was not enough to urge me to wait for the sequel.

Rating: D