Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

Set in a near-future dystopian US, most of America's children are dead due to a strange disease and those that have survived...well they aren't exactly "normal".  When she was 10 years old Ruby did something that caused her parents to lock her in the garage and call the authorities.  For 6 years Ruby lived at Thurmond one of the "rehabilitation camps" run by the government.  All these years she's been hiding her true power, until one day she can't hide it anymore.  After that she's broken out of camp by the Children's League, an ruthless anti-government group who wants to use Ruby as a weapon.

Ruby runs away from the Children's League and meets up with a group of teens on the run who are looking for East River and the Slip Kid, a place and person who seem to be the answer to all their problems.

Ruby is a likable character, although there is a little too much of her underestimating her own attractiveness, and her desire to be not girly can be a little much at times.  Her traveling group are all great supporting characters.  Liam, the group's flawed leader is adorable and you just want everything to work out for him, even though it's very unlikely that will happen.  Chubs slowly grows on you, and little Zu just sounds like a lost little girl that anyone would want to hug and take care of.  This book has action, romance, and it was hard for me to put it down.  It wasn't exactly what I was wanting to read when I picked it up, but I became so engrossed in the story that I just couldn't walk away.

The ending is heart breaking, but since this is the first in a planned trilogy, there will hopefully be some happier resolution later on.

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