This book is being Reviewed by Vanessa from Book Butterfly Reviews.
Title: The Darkest Minds
Series: The
Darkest Minds Book 1
Author: Alexandra
Bracken
Genre: Fantasy
Fiction, YA, dystopian, romance
Source: Paperback
Pages: 488 pages
Rating: 5 stars…
easy.
Available at:
Blurb: (via
Goodreads)
When
Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something
alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police.
Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government
"rehabilitation camp." She might have survived the mysterious disease
that's killed most of America's children, but she and the others have emerged
with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.
Now
sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.
When
the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she's on
the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her-East
River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave
leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him,
Ruby can't risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.
When
they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious
leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to
use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a
terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth
living.
My Review:
Where to begin, where to begin. For those who haven’t read
the books and are fans of books such as Divergent or Hunger Games… this has
that same dystopian feel…. With more fantasy worked in. I highly recommend
giving it a try, I doubt you will be disappointed. This is one of the best
books I have read in a while, so I am so excited to share it with you guys.
All right, so lets get right into it. Character wise, this story
is absolutely fantastic. Each character is set apart and has such a unique
personality. As you go throughout the story and learn about Ruby’s past and
some of the other characters past you can latterly watch the character
development unfold. Sometimes authors writing about teenagers make their
characters either too overly or under developed interaction wise. Nope, not our
girl Alexandra; she is right on the ball. The decisions these characters and
actions these characters make made sense. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest move,
but you can see where they are coming from, you can understand their mindset.
Relationship wise, well, you know who the love interest is going to be as soon
as you are introduced to him. I would have liked maybe a little doubt, but you
knew it was going to happen. On a friendship level though, Alexandra expertly
crafts situations and conversations that test the limits of Ruby’s
relationships with others; some for the better, and some for the worst. It was
amazing to be reading and go over one sentence and BAM, you just watched
something shift. BAM, foreshadowing. BAM a light goes off in your head. It was
awesome!
Now it should come to no surprise when I tell you that the
plot is fantastic. These kids are running for their lives, and they are trying
to find THE Safe Haven for other kids like them with the vaguest clue known to
man. The events at the beginning of the book set you up to understand Ruby’s
actions as the plot unfolds. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but she just
wants to be able to get close to those around her. You empathize with her
character. And although you are thinking how awesome it would be to have her
ability (and all the things that you can do with it) you kind of see how bad
the ability sucks, and how much grief and heartache it has caused. I don’t want
to say any more without giving something away. The writing was amazing., read
the book!
The one and only problem I REALLY had with this book is the color-coding.
Each kid is classified by color to signify what kind of ability they have. It
seems that the cooler colors (like green and blue) are less dangerous and
warmer colors (like orange and red) are more dangerous. My problem is two fold.
One, you have to figure out what each color means by yourself. It isn’t laid
out for you so you kind of have to piece it together from what you are told,
which you can do more or less without too much of a problem. You don’t really
understand what Reds are yet.. but if you figure how strong Oranges are… then
DANNNGGG, it should be interesting. My second problem is that I have a problem
with where telepathy is categorized. I figure this is a pretty dangerous power…
but they put it in the coldest color (blue).. I didn’t think that it was quite
right.
The last thing that I am going to say is that if you have
had any doubts thus far, the ending is completely, 100% worth the entire book.
It is sad, and heartbreaking and it will piss you off because you know it was
the right thing, but the wisdom behind the decisions made and the selflessness
of it all shows intelligence beyond her age. I can’t even wait to read the
novella and the sequel that follows. Ok, that’s all I am going to say! I highly
recommend the book, take a chance and read it!
If you liked my review and would like to read more like this
one, follow me on my blog http://bookbutterflyreviews.blogspot.ca/
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