The Darkest Minds

This must be one of my favourite books of the year (well last year now, 2012)! I underestimated it by far, and I'm awfully angry at myself for thinking so, but I guess that worked its favour as well, as I was truly blown away. The Darkest Minds is filled to the brim with heart-wrenching moments, magical characters and a style of writing that just captures your heart and soul. Its near impossible to describe in words how awesome this book was. It draws you in and steals your breath away, really easily. This book is gonna be the type that will make everyone who reads it, fall in love.

I thought that it was really clever to have written Ruby the way she is. Even if her childhood was ruined beyond repair, she isn't as broken or destroyed as you'll expect her to be. I thought that she was really fragile at the start, because of what she did to her parents and her best friend, and she was, but in a different way entirely. She was fragile in a way that she didn't want to hurt people, not fragile in the way that people hurt her. I thought that this was brilliant.

Ruby is smart, aware, guarded, kind, thoughtful, selfless and very brave, very very brave. In the final pages of the book, it was so obvious what she was going to do, but that made it all the worse when she did it. It broke my heart, that last bit of sacrifice, and I can only hope that Ruby has the ability to bring back memories.

Throughout the entire book, I have wondered what Red's powers are. I thought that maybe they were the worst of all the colours, because a lot of people consider red bad, you know, like blood. I reckon that we might find out what they are truly like in the next book...

The Drakest Minds is one of the best books to be written, and it is certainly shouldn't be missed.

Can I just love on this book? A lot? The Darkest Minds is completely fantastic! It's full of emotion-twisting moments, captivating writing and awesome characters (Chubs, I love you, man!). This is one of those books that I devoured. I slipped into the story and let myself get wrapped up in it, which was probably a bad idea since the novel tried to rip out my heart and stomp on it a couple times. But it was so worth it!!

In The Darkest Minds, Ruby is taken to Thurmond, a kind of work camp for kids with special powers, the survivors of a disease that destroyed most of the USA’s population of children. There are five different kinds of powers, and Ruby is an Orange, which basically means her powers are mental-based. But Ruby manages to get herself labeled as a Green, but years later, when she’s about 17, she’s discovered as an Orange. A terrorist organization helps her escape the camp, but when it when it becomes clear that the group's motives might not be entirely altruistic, Ruby runs. She meets up with Liam, Chubs and Suzume, who are escapees from another camp. As they search for a fabled safe haven for their kind, Ruby and Liam become closer, even as she struggles to keep her deepest secrets from him and the rest of the group.

Even though she's been abused and suppressed for years, Ruby isn't a fragile little dandelion, waiting to be blow over by whoever comes along. She's caring, thoughtful, incredibly guarded, and selfless; her final act of sacrifice at the end of the novel had me wanting to beat my Kindle into my bed, even though I sort of knew it was coming. And I cannot express my silly joy over the fact that Liam is a good ol' North Carolina guy. Go Tar Heel boys that aren't painted to be complete country hicks! It gives me hope that there actually are guys like that in my home state, just waiting to be discovered. ;) Suzume is possibly the most adorable preteen ever…yeah, she is. And Chubs, he just rules. He’s the cynical, practical voice that keeps optimistic Liam somewhat grounded, and I love the friendship that grow between him and Ruby. It’s so good.

Oh, I wish I could just gush on it a fountain of spoilers, this book is awesome! There are so many scenes between the kids that are so, so, so wonderful and realistically done. Some kids-have-powers books can be corny and contrived, but this one…I love it! So if you like dystopians and sci-fi and great stories, go read The Darkest Minds!

Thank you SO MUCH to Disney-Hyperion and NetGalley.com for letting me view this galley!

When I first read this description, I was drawn in by just reading the first two sentences. As I read even more, I was just about dying in ancticipation. You want to know why? I'm now a 100% sure that I have mentioned before my love for supernatural powers, and this is no exception.
Ruby's life turns into a disaster the day she turns 10. She wakes up and her mom and dad no longer know her daughter. For real, they have absolutely no memories about her. You will later realize that she accidentally used her powers on her parents, and erased all their memories of her. Her parents call the cops, but the PSF soldiers get there before they do. They take her to a rehabilitation camp, where you can imagine, is nothing as it is said to be. They don't treat them good, and care for them like they promised their parents. They run dangerous tests on them and use them like lab rats. Ruby is classified as a "Green" but is really an "Orange", which later you will realize, saved her very life. A couple years after she is there, the reds and oranges are taken from the camp, never to be seen again.
After that, she becomes even more rare and valueable to the "Children's League", which is an government organization to "save" children from the camps, but really uses the children's power for their own purposes.
I adored this book so, so much, but I gotta say what I liked most about this book was the premise. I just had fallen in love with this made-up world, where there was powers and evil villians. I know that sounds so wrong, since I should be pitying them because their life sucks, but...I don't know it just managed to get my attention and keep me reading to the very last page. The descriptions helped alot, since they were so profound and I could picture them perfectly in my head.
On to the characters: I really loved Ruby. There I said it. She was just so honest, and caring, it was so hard not to love her. From the beginning, I felt for her. She went through so much at such a young age, and that made her that much smarter and stronger. So, in a way, it helped her alot.
Liam...what to say? He was so great...smart, funny, compassionate, caring, and hopeful. I can't think of one bad thing to say about him. From the start, I KNEW I would love him, because of...just the way he was. Ok, that is my best I can do about describing my feelings for him.
The other minor characters like Chubs and Zu, were such a huge, GIGANTIC part of this story too! I have to give them some credit :D
The ENDING to this story was just so...heartbreaking and sad. I was (seriously) cying and screaming "WHY, OH WHY DID THIS HAVE TO HAPPEN?" So, if you don't like sad endings...don't read this book, but the good news? It does make me want to read the second book VERY badly.
Overall, this book was incredible and awesome and I would recommend this to everybody!

Let the fangirling commence. Oh my goodness, what a story. I loved it from the first word to the last emotional scene. Alexandra has created a story with a unique plot, amazing characters, and she is one heck of a writer. I couldn't believe the emotional roller coaster that she took me on and this masterpiece that she wrote with the OMG moments, did she seriously just do that to this character that I love, she made me laugh, want to cry, want to rip people's hair out, and mostly just sit in awe of how beautifully she crafted The Darkest Minds.
I loved the premise from the moment that I read it, and Alexandra really pulls it off well. She breathed her own breath of fresh air into the genre and wrote some awesome ideas and scary elements to the chilling world she has created in The Darkest Minds. The plot was woven together wonderfully. Alexandra told us what we needed to know at the moment and then filled in the details later by showing them and acting them out. While I admit I was a bit confused with some of the lingo and exactly what happened (I thought I missed something), I later saw how she put it all together.
Ruby is an amazing main character. I loved how much she grew and changed in this story, and I really admire the person she turned into at the end even more so than the one that I connected with at the beginning. I love her fighter spirit and how much she cares for and would do anything for the people that she loves.
There is also a great cast of secondary characters. Liam, so crushworthy and such a born leader. Speaking of, I admired how the romance in here was subtle, ie no insta love. I appreciated how they got to know each other, and even though there was physical attraction, there was also an emotional connection. On to the others though. Chubs, ever loyal to those he cares about, and full of surprises. Zu, the precious and strong younger character that you want to shield and hope the best for. And then there were the characters like Clancy that I never knew what exactly to make of. There are also some awesomely written antagonists, that make me want to scream at them and wonder at their methods and how they sleep at night.
All that said, I must warn that this is a dark book for mature teens. There's some (not on every page or anything though) cursing that I found slightly offensive, but given what was going on, I could overlook. There is also some fairly descriptive talk about injuries/blood. (All of this is in arc the advanced reader copy)
Back to what I loved-- I so can't wait to get the next book in this series, and find out more about what happens to Ruby and what comes of the incredibly brave but heart wrenching choices that she made.
Bottom line: Absolutely loved and recommend. Wonderful start to a new trilogy.

Awesome quote:
She didn't know there were two of me now; split between everything I had wanted and everything I would now have to be. One of me... would stay... (The other) thin as a wisp of air and had struggled so long just to be.