Superpowers. Sounds fun right?

Well, when you have to survive an unknown and extremely deadly disease in order to get these powers, only to be segregated from society and essentially kept in concentration camps is far from fun.

Bracken’s The Darkest Minds Series begins with a very X-Men-esque scenario, as described above. After an unknown disease kills off the majority of the State’s children, only a relatively small percentage are left, but there were after-effects to this illness. Those who survived would develop one of a five of abilities ranging from telekinesis to powerful telepathy. These abilities are assigned colours, which are later used to segregate its users, separating them into groups based on their potential threat level. Greens (those with enhanced intelligence) are considered the least dangerous, while the most dangerous include the Red (those with pyrokinesis) and the Orange (telepaths). The most dangerous of the group were often killed on the spot. 

The follows an Orange, who, against all odds, has survived many years in a “rehabilitation” camp under the guise of a Green. Upon rescue from the camp, she not only realizes just how much the outside world has changed, but she realizes for any true change to occur, there are hard decisions ahead of her. 

I enjoyed this book, for the most part, though I often found it to be a slower-than-usual read for a YA novel. This book also differs quite a bit from other dystopian YA in that it tends to take a bit more of a political standpoint on the subjects it presents while still pandering to the action-filled expectations of its intended audience. With many parallels to the ever-so-popular superhero genre, this book does a good job of setting itself apart from other superhero-based stories and succeeds in creating characters who are multi-dimensional. The book spends a lot of time on character development, a lot more than you would expect from a YA novel, coming at what some may consider the current fall from grace of Dystopian Sci-Fi. 

As I’ve already alluded to, I found the book to be a little slow at times, with scenes that I did not find entirely necessary (though they did achieve what they were meant to.) My most notable problems with the book are subjective: when it comes down to it, I simply did not find many of the characters likeable. I often found that the protagonist tended to be inconsistent. The inconsistencies are, for the most part, excusable due to the circumstances of the driving plot. Regardless, I often became a little annoyed because the character seemed to have sudden unexplained bursts of a newfound confidence that didn’t seem appropriate. 

This book was pretty good, but to be honest, I ultimately enjoyed it as much as others. I’m glad I read the first book, but I don’t intend to read the rest of the series.