I love young adult mystery thrillers. This one had a lot of twists and turns I didn’t see coming, and I loved the mysterious aspect.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of TAKE ME WITH YOU. Review was left on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

I am disappointed with this book. I was expecting one thing and received another. It had potential but it was not well written.

TAKE ME WITH YOU has a very interesting premise and definitely contains a message, but I wanted more with this one. I thought that everything could have been turned up just a little more to add to the tension. Maybe it is because the is a YA title and I have been reading a lot of gritty thrillers.

I loved the storyline and how their lives started to interweave with each other. It was one of those books that I didn't want to put down while I was reading it, but when I did walk away from it, I struggled to remember what was going on with it.

I loved the premise but it didn't quite work for me.

Likes:

The MC's are all different
the POV's switched (I do love that!)
Tension

Dislikes:

There were some throw away characters that I felt weren't needed.
The plot needs a little more work.

In the beginning I was not really connecting to the book or the characters but the device captivated me. I’m a sucker for self aware AI in books. The idea is terrifying but realistic which makes it even more
Terrifying. In the middle I had finally connected to all the characters except Ilanka (sp) and of course the device had me wanting to read to figure out what would happen. Then the ending... I felt like it could’ve ended differently. There was a moment when I think I was supposed to feel sorry for the device before it self destructed but it fell flat. I also didn’t like how they just went about their lives. Eli getting the passcode to the device’s office but no answers on what he would choose to do? This could have been great and I think it was a strong idea.

The premise is definitely intriguing. It hooked me enough to want to find out what was happening. But I guess I expected more. The wow factor wasn’t there for me.

Part of the story felt all over the place, with no real end in sight. When we finally reach the end, it didn't feel like that was the way the author intended to end. That was my perspective, at least. The build up was what kept me intrigued, though. I just think that things along the way got lost, and the ending fell flat.

This was such an odd book. This is my first Tara Altebrando book, and I've had several people recommend her to me. So I thought I'd pick this one up. I didn't hate it, I just didn't love it. It was really weird to me. I had no idea what was going to happen, where this cube came from, or anything. At moments I felt trapped to the point where my anxiety started to go crazy. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing with a book like this. The writing was okay, the characters were meh, though I did like how vastly different each character was, with their nationality and personality. Like I said, this was just a weird book all together.

The premise of this book sounded right up my alley, but the novel read younger than I prefer. This is totally my fault as I tend to be picky with YA science fiction - sometimes I love it and sometimes it reads a bit too young for me. While I liked the premise, the actual story did not keep me interested, and I did not finish the book for this reason. The characters did seem to be written age appropriately (high school age) so I would potentially recommend it for the younger YA audience.

Take Me with You is a stand-alone novel that is part thriller, part science fiction, and part coming of age story. Just like the cube doesn’t fit neatly in these teens' preconceived ideas, this novel doesn’t fit any one genre either. Altebrando has created a story with so much potential, yet it just falls flat. The ending was anticlimactic and I lost interest about halfway through. It wasn’t a long read, so I don’t feel like it was a waste of time, but it isn’t a book I can strongly recommend to everyone. A fun read, just not a great read.

This isn't much of a review. I personally couldn't get into it, and thus had to drop it. I was interested in the summary, but once I started reading I found myself not really enjoying myself.

I was so excited to read this book when I got approved for it on Netgalley. Going into it, I thought I was going to get a YA sci fi thriller. It delivered on the YA and sci fi, but was lacking in the thriller genre.

I felt like the book had a very fun and interesting concept, with an attention grabbing plot line. It starts right off the bat with Eden, Marwan, Eli and Ilanka being brought together and being introduced to the device in the music room, which pulls readers into the storyline.

Unfortunately, my attention wasn't held throughout the book. The author had a lot of great ideas, but ultimately it fell flat for me. For me, the pacing was not great, and the book lacked the mounting suspense that accompanies thrillers. I didn't feel like there was a significant sense of urgency depicted, and there wasn't a great balance in character development. Some characters lacked depth (Eli & Ilanka), but others were more fully developed (Marwan).

I wanted this to be a hit, but ultimately was a miss. While I can appreciate the creativity we did see in the book, the lack of believability really got me. I did like that the plot lines got wrapped up nicely in the end.

When four teens find themselves unexpectedly brought together by a mysterious piece of technology, they aren't sure how to handle it. They want as little to do with each other as they do the box, but it seems that ignoring it isn't the best way to deal with the situation. Soon things go from mysterious to dangerous, and they find themselves working together to stay alive and protect those around them.

This was an exciting, fast-paced sci-fi thriller. A great read for both boys and girls who are fans of the genre.

This book sounded super interesting, Lots of Black Mirror vibes. There is a lot i liked about this book. In general the plot is interesting. What kinda killed it for me was the characters themselves. So an interesting and terrifying concept that just missed the mark for me.

Four teenagers are forced to work together to maintain a device happy. . . or else.

This book definitely was not for me, the story never grabbed me, the characters were too flat and similar, many exchanges (especially between teens and adults) were super awkward and totally cringe, explanations and clarity were lacking, the ending was anticlimatic and definitely too easy in my opinion, it tried to do too much and accomplished nothing.

My biggest issue is that it was presented as a "psychological thriller" (which I love) and it ended up being just a sci-fi book (which is not my favourite).

Normally, I am all about a new Tara Altebrando. This one--I just didn't connect with it. Possibly because I'm usually on the side of psychopathic literary AIs?

Overall this was a good book but it was also rather disappointing. I really enjoyed the characters and loved seeing how they interacted with one another and the concept of this book was also really interesting for me. This book was also a great exploration of how technology affects our everyday lives and how it can also control our lives. Often people lead different lives than what they post and portray on social media and Altebrando did a great job exploring that through her characters.

However, the plot moved along slower than I would have expected for a thriller and the ending was also lackluster. While the book did keep me guessing about what would happen next the twists where underwhelming and the ending wasn't surprising or shocking.

I think this book was great in concept but unfortunately for me it fell rather flat.

I would definitely recommend this book to readers who enjoy books about artificial intelligence and who enjoy multiple character perspectives.

I actually quit this book because I wasn't in the right mood for it at the time.

I don't have any issues, and intend to give it another try in the very near future!

Full review to come!

Take Me With You reminded me a lot like an episode of Black Mirror. It was creepy and kept you guessing until the last page. I do wish the ending was a little more clearer, but I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a thriller.

Take Me With You by Tara Altebrando, 384 pages. Bloomsbury, 2020. $18.
Language: PG13 (22 swears, 0 “f”); Mature Content: PG13; Violence: PG
BUYING ADVISORY: HS - OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
Four high school students receive odd messages to meet with the band teacher after school -- but he is nowhere to be found. Instead, they find a black box giving them instructions: do not tell anyone else about it and to take it with them...or else. These students must obey the device and figure out what it wants or find out what “or else” means.
While I was intrigued by the story, I was also confused about what was going on the whole time. I think there are valuable lessons to be learned from these high schoolers about being careful and conservative with technology use, but the mystery still feels unresolved by the end of the book. The mature content rating is for mentions of sex, sexting, and drugs.
Reviewer: Carolina Herdegen