Have you ever had an experience that you couldn’t explain? An encounter that felt real, although it felt so unbelievable that it could only have been a dream? These are the sorts of questions explored in Dona Masi’s novel The Taking.
A single father struggles to raise his only daughter in a small New England town. When bizarre occurrences begin for his daughter, he becomes concerned that the events she describes are similar to events that his wife described before she disappeared years earlier. A mystery and an unexpected generational trauma lie at the heart of this tale.
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A massive thank you to Roundfire Books for providing a copy of the novel for review.
Dreams or Reality?
Single father John lives in a small town with his daughter Vera. He struggles to raise the precocious eight-year-old, and they both experience difficulty in working through the trauma of the disappearance of Suzy, wife and mother to them respectively, when Vera was a child.
As Vera grows, she begins to experience a series of occurrences that she originally believes may be dreams. When she shares these occurrences with John, he’s horrified to find that her story is a copy of the one his wife used to describe to him about herself prior to her disappearance.
These occurrences continue through Vera’s young years into her teenage years, and as time passes and others in town give indications of similar experiences, she’ll have to come to terms with the fact that her “dreams” are in fact real, and she’ll have to do whatever she can to avoid disappearing the way that her mother did.
It started to rise higher and float toward her, growing brighter as it moved, until it was a fiery circle that set the sky on fire.
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The Characters
The strength of a novel like The Taking lies within its characters and their struggles. Both John and Vera are fleshed out and realistic – this can be particularly difficult with scenes narrated from the perspective of a child. However, Dona Masi has created a young character who reasons in the way that a child would.
The character of John is also presented as a good man who wants the best for his child but struggles to provide the happy and protected environment for his child that he would like. It’s also clear that he hasn’t fully worked through the trauma of his wife’s disappearance or his guilt at having chosen not to believe her when she shared her own belief that she was experiencing a phenomenon that she could not put her finger on.
When you exist in a no-man’s-land between two different realities, you might feel an intuition that there’s a mystery that involves you, that makes you unlike everyone in the world but for other chosen people.
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Pacing and Plot
A small town filled with mysterious occurrences drives the narrative of The Taking, and a surprising discovery by the residents takes the story in an unexpected direction. The folks disappearing from town – either short or long-term – are not in fact doing so for no reason. I won’t reveal too much, but I will say that the novel took an unexpected turn from my original expectation when I cracked open the cover. I will say that this twist may not be something that every reader will enjoy, however, for folks searching for true surprise and a mystery that takes a different genre turn, it certainly delivers.
The one major aspect that I felt was lacking in the novel may have been the pacing. There were multiple scenes that felt filler-heavy, moving through mundane tasks for the characters that did not necessarily work to advance the plot in any way. They help to solidify the characters themselves, however, there were certain aspects that could have been skipped without any harm being done to the plot.
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Final Thoughts
The Taking offers readers the chance to examine whether or not we as a species are alone in the universe. Multiple strange instances in a small town take the reader through an otherworldly, interesting, and unexpected experience.
Here’s hoping that Dona Masi is able to continue to expand upon her excellent character-building skills in future novels. If you want to explore grief and the love between a father and daughter, The Taking is now available wherever you buy your books!
*Disclosure: We only recommend books that we love and would read ourselves. This post contains affiliate links, as we are part of the Amazon Services LCC Associate Program and others, which may earn us a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
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