Darkest Minds

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Darkest Minds

What would you do if you woke up on your tenth birthday and your parents didn’t remember you? If, in fact, they were so afraid of you that they locked you in the garage to protect themselves from you? In this version of the future United States, ten-year-olds are rounded up and put into concentration-type camps to control them. Why? They have powers. Powers that can control others. Powers that give them super-human strength. Powers that heal. Powers that scare adults.

Ruby finds herself in one of these camps. She is labeled “dangerous”, and figures out that the adults mean to eliminate her. She escapes and joins a group of kids to find the elusive East River, where a large group of runaways are living in peace – or so they hope. This story has it all – apocalypse, evil adults, kids who rise-up, love, and loss. If you like dystopian fiction and especially The Hunger Games, you’ll like this book. Recommended for mature readers.

ISBN: 9781423157373  488 pages. Ages 14 & up.

Reviewed by Jennifer Altena, NBCT, 5th Grade Teacher, Shoreline, Washington USA

Other titles in the series:  The Darkest Minds Never Fade; In the Afterlight

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The book takes place in a society where the children aged 10 and older have special powers.  The government put the children in “rehabilitation” camps where they were classified into color groups.  Each color represented the child’s special power.  Ruby is classified as a green, but she is really an orange.  As an orange, she has the ability to get into other people’s minds.  She can live through their memories.  

She is taken to Thurmond, one of the worst camps.  The red and orange children have been killed because they pose a threat to the government.  Ruby escapes Thurmond with the help of Cate, a nurse connected to the Children’s League, which is an organization that exploits the children they save.

 Ruby escapes from Cate and meets three other children: Liam, Zu, and Chubs.  Ruby and Liam are attracted to one another.  They are looking for a sanctuary that is supposed to help kids that have escaped the camps.  However, when they find it, it isn’t all they expected.

 Clancy Gray, the young man that runs the sanctuary, is the president’s son and is an orange.  He has his own agenda which Ruby discovers.  All hell breaks loose at the sanctuary and Liam, Ruby and Chubs escape.  The ending was not what I expected and I was surprised by it and the reader will be too.

I highly recommend this book for Older and Mature Readers as some of the subject matter is for mature readers.  The reader is drawn into the book and won’t want to put it down.

Submitted by Karen Limbaugh, Retired Librarian, Texas USA

 

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