The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken | Rating: ★★★★★

“He’s so busy looking inside people to find the good that he misses the knife they’re holding in their hand.”

For me, between this and Splintered by A.G Howard, this novel is one of the best available in young adult literature these days. I’d heard a small buzz of hype about it on Tumblr last year and decided to purchase it on a whim to check it out. And honestly, I’m glad I did — not only is it entertaining, it’s definitely written a lot better than some current YA titles.

It took me such a small frame of time to read it because I didn’t want to put it down. There’s something about the novel that keeps you reading, keeps you glued to the story, because I honestly did not want to put it down until I reached the last page. I just had to know what happened.

The Darkest Minds was very suspenseful. There was a lot of action in it and it kept the novel all the more interesting when tied into the mysterious disease which has taken the lives of so many kids in this fictional world. With the controlling government and the surviving kids there were only two options: one being they were locked away at a, and I quote, rehabilitation camp (which was horrendous) and the second option meant living a life on the run and in constant fear.

It's nuts.





We meet Ruby Daly — sixteen years old but at this point she only knows so much about the world because she’s been locked away at one of the many ‘camps’ since she was ten years old. She lives a rather quiet life while at the camp and mostly avoids talking after an incident with her one time friend. Upon an incident with the white noise machine, levels in which only certain “colors” can hear, she is led to believe that PSF’s at her camp plan to kill her and is broken out of the camp by an undercover member of the mysterious Children’s League.



Not long after she and another camper are smuggled out of Thurmond, by chance she uses her powers and sees something that makes her question her safety with this so called league. And then, she’s on the run again.

During this section of the story we meet three characters (Chubs, Zu and Liam) and though things may not be in the greatest of shape at first, they do become a bit of a family as the search for the mysterious Slip Kid. Someone who remains nameless and faceless to them for the time being, but is rumored to have the ability to get them in contact with their families.

Over the course of the book, they are surprised to discover who this Slip Kid really is and slide into an almost routine of things upon reaching ‘East River’ which is viewed as a safe haven of sorts for the kids who have escaped their respective camps. After a while, they soon learn that “the Darkest Minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces.”

By the end of it all, you’ll be on the edge of your seat wondering what it is that happens next. There’s a bit of a heartbreaking cliffhanger by the end of this opening novel and will leave you wondering what it is that will happen in the remaining stories this trilogy has left to tell. I recommend it. I, a million times over, recommend this story. It’s certainly become one of my favorites so far.