Review: Talented by Sophie Davis

Title: Talented (#1)
Author: Sophie Davis
Pages: 316
ISBN: 9781618429940
Genre: Young Adult
First Published: January 2012
Buy It: Amazon

When Talia Lyons was just a child, her parents were murdered before her eyes. Offered a choice between accepting their fate and exacting revenge, Talia trains to become one of the country’s deadliest assassins in order to kill the man responsible for their deaths: Ian Crane. Luckily, Talia was born with a gift- the ability to read and influence the minds of others. At sixteen, Talia is poised to graduate from the McDonough School for the Talented, where she learned to control her abilities. Now there is only one obstacle standing between her and the retribution she craves... Talia herself.

She must regain the single-minded determination that has brought her this far, or it may cost Talia her life when she finally faces Crane. And even after being molded in to a weapon of war, she’ll still have to find the strength it takes to pull the trigger.

Talented hooked me from page one. It's an original dystopian story about a world in which a lot of people are born with a talent. Talia has mind power but there are also people who can morph into animals, or people whose brains are faster than the best technology. Talia has two teammates, Henri who's a morph and Erik, who's a mimic. He can copy the talent of people around him. Pretty awesome talent right? And the guy himself is pretty awesome too. I was team Erik from the start. Unfortunately Talia and her boyfriend Donovan have been dating since they were kids so that's a bummer. There's just something about Donovan that irks me. And the ending of the book only made it worse. Talk about a cliffhanger!

There's something about me that should know. I loooooove big books. It's just that, if I read a big book, I want it to keep me hooked. Talented couldn't always do that (and it's not even thát big). There were a lot of moments in this book where Talia was training alone or with Henry and Erik and I felt like the writer could have skipped some of the training to keep the story interesting. 

Nevertheless I enjoyed this book very much. I don't read a lot of dystopian but I'm glad I read this one. The cliffhanger left me wanting for more, and I can't wait to read more about Erik. And Talia of course!