I stole this book from my daughter's room while she was away, so I hope she doesn't bother to read this post. I thought it might be a book in similar vein to Jim Butcher's, and indeed Jim has glowingly written "A must-read" on Taken's front cover.
   So is it a 'must-read'?
   Well, no. It's an okay novel. Oi'll give it five, as they used to say. If Jim's books are for young adults, Benedicts are for Very Young Adults, plus you have to have a strong enough literary stomach to read page after page of exposition and painfully detailed backstory. When action happens, it's quite well described, and some of the teenage interactions are nicely observed, but the whole thing is built on the sand of the author explaining every little thing, which gets awfully tedious.
  The climax was surprisingly and refreshingly horrible, but I really don't recommend you buy the book specifically to read the end. Unless you're a VYA who feels Jim Butcher is just too advanced at the moment, I don't really recommend you to buy this book at all. Like I didn't.