Ruby can't look back. Fractured by an unbearable loss, she and the kids who survived the government's attack on Los Angeles travel north to regroup. With them is a prisoner: Clancy Gray, son of the president, and one of the few people Ruby has encountered with abilities like hers. Only Ruby has any power over him, and just one slip could lead to Clancy wreaking havoc on their minds.
They are armed only with a volatile secret: proof of a government conspiracy to cover up the real cause of IAAN, the disease that has killed most of America's children and left Ruby and others like her with powers the government will kill to keep contained. But internal strife may destroy their only chance to free the "rehabilitation camps" housing thousands of other Psi kids.
Meanwhile, reunited with Liam, the boy she would-and did-sacrifice everything for to keep alive, Ruby must face the painful repercussions of having tampered with his memories of her. She turns to Cole, his older brother, to provide the intense training she knows she will need to take down Gray and the government. But Cole has demons of his own, and one fatal mistake may be the spark that sets the world on fire.
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| Image from Twirling Pages |
Behold, I finally read the final book in the Darkest Minds trilogy, and my world was a it satisfying! I should probably do a quick synopsis. So one day, a bunch of children get this "virus", many of them die, but the ones that don't get supernatural powers.I know what you are thinking LAME! But no, we skip years ahead in which all these children are in concentration camps and the trilogy kicks off with Ruby escaping her camp. I won't say anymore because you will want to read this series. Go now if you haven't, then come back and we can talk about it then. BYEEEEE!
Have you gone?
Good.
I'm just gonna jump right into it, Ruby is the protagonist I have been waiting for my whole life. Bracken is the almighty queen of character development, there is not a single character, no matter how small and seemingly meaningless who doesn't change due to the events of the book, Ruby obviously changing the most. She begins in the Darkest Minds very meek and scared and then turns into this fighting, bad-ass, army trained hero. During 'In The Afterlight', this persona isn't gone, but she is struggling. I love it when characters struggle. Especially when it's against things they themselves have done, the way they see themselves. It is so mesmerizing to go into that persons head and feel them struggle, because very few authors show struggle the way it is, monotonous and constant. It doesn't come and go and get resolved in the next chapter. No! Bracken makes it realistic, it's underlying in every scene, every snip of dialogue and it is beautiful to read.
Even Clancy at the end of this book is changed, not willingly but changed and how Ruby dealt with him when she saw him in his fragile state.Taking away the memories of being tortured and researched on was just lovely and his face afterwards. And the twist where it turns out he had been manipulating her throughout the whole book! WHAAATTT?! I had no clue. Though admittedly Clancy isn't as much in this book as he was previously, the bad guy in this book is Ruby against herself. Not to mention the in fighting from the kids. It's almost like the seams are all fraying and falling apart in this book and all the characters are in a rush to stop the camps, before the string falls loose altogether. Ruby and Cole are grabbing at the fraying strings and trying to pull them back together and nobody else is even noticing the strain. That was one hell of a metaphor.
There was only one thing I wasn't too keen on. Sex. Now this is no Fifty Shades of BDSM. But when authors try to write people having sex without getting graphic, it's just a lot of gross innuendos. Maybe it's my personal preference, maybe it's a universal shudder down the spine- but honestly a sentence of 'then we had sex.' would make me a lot more comfortable than 'our bodies became one' yada yada yada. Then again I can't really think of any good ways to combat this issue and still have a visual and romantic scene, so keep trying authors.
All in all, this ending was very satisfying, it tied all the ends together with enough slack that you can guess and imagine what happened. You know the world will change now and even though you don't get to see it. Somehow, it's okay. This is one of my favourite series of all time and I highly recommend you read it. I've tried to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible, because this series is one hell of a ride, and I don't want to tell you too much about where your going,
Happy Reading
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