Aaand I’m back after my long hiatus! Thank you for your patience. First things first; confession time, I reached exactly 0 words total on my NaNoWriMo project. Sigh. My first challenge was that I was too engrossed in In the Afterlight the last in Alexandra Bracken’s Darkest Minds trilogy. This was released just a day or so before NaNoWriMo, which was just mean! I really couldn’t put the thing down. I found this last instalment in Ruby and co’s story to be engrossing and wonderfully satisfying. I probably won’t do a full review on it as it’s been a little while since I read it, but it got a five star rating from me on GoodReads. Then in November things became unexpectedly crazy at work and I spent all day every day working my butt off to keep our support queue under some kind of control. After that the last thing I felt like doing was coming home and writing. It was much easier to delve into someone else’s world than to work on creating my own. These are all, excuses, I know, and I’m not proud of myself. Maybe next year I’ll do better. Other non-reading events in my…
The Darkest Minds: Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken is the followup to The Darkest Minds. This series tells the story of Ruby, a young girl living in a world where most of the children have been killed by a virus but the survivors have been left with supernatural powers. Ruby is one such survivor with the power to control other people’s minds. The country has been left devastated by the loss of the children and fear of those who remain. Ruby and her friends are running from place to place trying to find safety. I adored both The Darkest Minds and the novella In Time so it was a little surprising that I was somewhat disappointed by Never Fade. It actually took me several attempts to sit down and read it. This is the second book in an expected trilogy, perhaps it was a little of middle book syndrome. This also appears to be at the lowest point of our protagonist’s arc, and as such I found it a little depressing. Ruby is dealing with a lot of guilt, doubt and self loathing in this book which makes it rather a dark read. I also missed the camaraderie between Ruby,…
The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken is a young adult dystopian novel which tells the story of Ruby, a young survivor of the IAANS plague. IAANS killed off most of the children between the ages of about eight and fourteen and those who survived, like Ruby, are left with supernatural powers. This frightens the government who responds by placing them in “rehabilitation camps.” The Darkest Minds is about Ruby’s escape from such a camp and her search for a way to live a normal life. What I liked Multi-layered characters. The people we meet in The Darkest Minds are generally neither wholly good nor wholly evil. There are a lot of shades of grey in the characters and it’s often difficult to tell whose side a person is on. Even those characters who are not, shall we say, altruistically concerned about Ruby’s welfare have good and believable motives for their actions. This adds a great deal of depth to the characters and a nice level of narrative tension. Even the mute Suzume has a real personality. Beautifully descriptive writing style. I immediately fell in love with Bracken’s way of writing. She has a wonderful way of describing things that made…
I think my reading of House of Hades must have infected me with some demigod ADHD because I am trying to read no fewer than four books at the same time. Sigh. So many great books, so little time. I couldn’t decide what audiobook to listen to at work so I used a random number generator to help me choose. The selection landed on The Meryl Streep Movie Club by Mia March. For those of you who don’t know, this is set in the same world as Finding Colin Firth but written and set earlier. So far I’m enjoying it – I loved the setting and the characters are relatable. A full review will come shortly. After listening to a few chapters though I realised I was more in the mood for some YA dystopia, so I picked up Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds. I’d been hooked by the preview on Bracken’s website and I am continuing to enjoy it. Ruby seems an interesting, if damaged character, and I look forward to reading more of her story. Again, expect a full review soon. I had been asked to review Paul Levine’s State vs. Lassiter so I have added it to this…