Howdy Bookworms,

Happy Saturday! It’s a dreary Kansas City day in my universe, my favorite! I hope you have some fun plans or books to nestle up to.

I just finished another read and am super excited to share.

This time around I read The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken.

This book has been on my TBR for a lot longer than I’d like to admit, but this year is all about catching up to novels I just had to give a shot. I love anything superpowered and have watched the movie adaptation of this novel several times, so I dove right in. What did I think? Keep on scrolling!

Blurb:

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.

GoodReads

The Review:

I gave this book four stars!

In this novel we are thrust into a dark world where children and adolescents have begun to develop abilities. The majority of them have been placed in internment camps and are subject to endless terrible conditions, physical labor, and sometimes even torture. Ruby was taken when she was ten and has lived at the Thurmond compound for six years, but when a mysterious doctor shows up and offers her a way out, she can’t refuse. Her life only gets more complicated after as she embarks on a quest of self-discovery with those like her. Can she figure out her abilities and find safety, or will she be dragged back to Thurmond kicking and screaming?

This was a solid, fun read. I’ve watched the movie adaptation a number of times, and I just had to give this a go. While this wasn’t a perfect read, there were plenty of great elements within.

Ruby is an interesting main character. She’s extremely introverted, shy, and hesitant to trust anyone. For good reason given her past! I found I could easily relate to her hardships, which made it easy to root for her. She has a decent amount of character progression and learns to open up and as a result becomes quite a bit more functional socially. I’ll admit that she did get on my nerves a bit in the first half of the book. Knowing her history, obviously she’s going to have some severe internal conflict, but it took more precedence than I would’ve liked and in some parts she came across as mopey. In no way am I discounting the horrors she’s been through, but Ruby could get so caught up in her thoughts that the present didn’t seem to matter in spots, and that took away from the story.

There are plenty of great side characters. Zu, Chubs, and Liam each had a great distinctive personality, and I loved getting to know them better. Liam was a bit simple if you ask me, but I didn’t take any points off there. Some people are just simple in nature.

The plot was what really drew me in. I loved the dark world that our characters lived in where adolescents were on the run if not already in these terrible camps. The beginning focuses on Ruby’s beginning and life in the camps, which I enjoyed. The parts of the book after her escape was a bit dull in spots, but things pick back up around the halfway point and that made all the difference.  I’m not going to spoil anything, but I liked how different the ending was from the movie adaptation.

Definitely going to continue this series!

If you like superpowered individuals, action, mystery, and teen drama, this book is for you!

That’s a Wrap!

Thanks for stopping by, and happy reading!

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Do you have a book recommendation similar to this one? Feel free to share or gab in the comments!

If you’d like to see other reviews of mine, feel free to check out the book review section of my blog or my GoodReads. You can also follow my GoodReads reviews here. There are some great binge-worthy books on there!

Have a great day!

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