Girl, Stolen by April Henry

 From Goodreads: "Sixteen year-old Cheyenne Wilder is sleeping in the back of a car while her mom fills her prescription at the pharmacy. Before Cheyenne realizes what's happening, their car is being stolen--with her inside! Griffin hadn’t meant to kidnap Cheyenne, all he needed to do was steal a car for the others. But once Griffin's dad finds out that Cheyenne’s father is the president of a powerful corporation, everything changes—now there’s a reason to keep her. What Griffin doesn’t know is that Cheyenne is not only sick with pneumonia, she is blind. How will Cheyenne survive this nightmare, and if she does, at what price?" 

When I first read the back of the this book I thought that it sounded super unique, therefore I was quite excited to read it, thinking it would be amazing. But (isn't there always a but?)... It just wasn't my cup of tea. I think that a lot of other YA readers will enjoy this book, I think that my biggest problem is that I think that currently I am very much loving YA paranormal and anything that isn't within that genre just kinda falls flat for me.

One pro of this book is that the characters are extremely relatable. You have Cheyenne, a young girl who has undergone ordeal after ordeal over an extremely short period of time, losing her mom in a freak accident, losing her eyesight from said accident, getting sick and then getting kidnapped, who remains strong despite it all and then you have Griffin, the unintentional kidnapper who has had a pretty crappy life, who you just cannot  but feel sorry for and despite all of his mistakes, and who you eventually come to love. Another pro is that it draws awareness to visual impairments and clears up the misconception that everyone who is legally blind cannot see whatsoever, Cheyenne is considered as such, but she does have a tiny sliver of peripheral vision in her one eye.

However, one of the cons of this book is that the action really never takes off as much as I would have preferred. For a large part of the story Cheyenne is tied to a bed and is pretty helpless since her vision is not good enough to get her out of the situation. When the action finally does occur, it happens within the very last part of the book and is over within a heartbeat.

It kinda reminds me of "If the Witness Lied" and "Code Orange" by Caroline B. Cooney- they are all books that I could either take them or leave them.

Rating: 6/10 



For some reason I always seem to get this book mixed up with "Stolen" by Lucy Christopher (mainly I think because they have somewhat of a similar story line with the kidnapping/ the title). I am going to have to give this one a read as well, I think that it sounds a lot more action-packed, so hopefully I enjoy it a bit more:

"This is how it happened: Gemma is on a layover in Bangkok, en route to a family vacation in Vietnam. She steps away for just a second. To get a cup of coffee. Ty--rugged, tan, too old, oddly familiar--pays for her drink. And drugs it. They talk. Their hands touch. And before Gemma knows what's happening, Ty takes her. The object of a long obsession, Gemma has been kidnapped by her stalker and brought to the Australian Outback. To sand and heat. Emptiness and isolation. Where he expects her to love him." 

 
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