Remember when Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games kicked off a new trend for YA audiences? It seemed to be all dystopia all the time following the explosive popularity of Katniss Everdeen and Panem’s cruel government— especially after it was picked up to be a major motion picture. Two years after The Hunger Games book series concluded with Mockingjay, when the first movie was all the rage, American author Alexandra Bracken gave the YA world another trilogy to sink its teeth into: The Darkest Minds trilogy.
Though the first novel, The Darkest Minds, was published in 2012, it took until this year for it to hit the big-screen. The adaptation stars actress Amandla Stenberg— coincidentally, The Darkest Minds’ leading lady captured moviegoers’ hearts as Rue in The Hunger Games— as our heroine, Ruby.
The only dystopian series I was down for before, during, and after The Hunger Games was Michael Grant’s Gone series. Six books made up the first “season,” a gleefully horrifying tale of ordinary teens who suddenly find themselves bestowed superpowers at random— with no adult supervision. As one might expect, it was chock-full of gruesome deaths, spooky sci-fi elements, and implied cannibalism.
I kind of missed the boat on The Darkest Minds, but I picked it up this week, and man, the nostalgia is real.
The Darkest Minds takes place in a world where America’s youth is dropping like flies; the surviving minority aren’t lucky to avoid the plague, they’ve resisted death only to bounce back new and improved, with mutant abilities. Rather than finding this whole development fucking awesome, the government panics and ships the children off by the busload to “rehabilitation camps,” where, their parents are assured, they will be treated like royalty; when they finally emerge, they’ll also be power-free. That’s all a lie. The camps are horror-shows, the kids are treated like dogs, and after a host of inhumane slice-and-dice experiments, doctors and scientists are only sure of one thing: the kids aren’t alright, and nothing will cure their powers.
There are five power classifications, based on colour: green, blue, yellow, orange, and red. The greens and blues turn out to be the lucky ones, while the yellows, oranges, and reds are quickly identified as threats and disposed of accordingly.
Ruby is one of the unfortunate kids sent away. To Thurmond, the OG of nightmare camps. She’s able to stay under-the-radar for a good five years. She’s also an orange with mysterious memory-wiping abilities that she doesn’t know how to control. Quite by accident, but out of desperation, she’s able to convince her assessor that she’s a green, thus avoiding an early, painful death. She’s on the verge of being found out when one of Thurmond’s new doctors smuggles her from the facility, letting her see the desolation of the outside world, and finally letting Ruby take her life into her own hands.
Of course, by this point, like any sane person, Ruby is distrustful of everything and everyone. She realizes her rescuer intends to put her in a different kind of cage, and makes a break for it; she teams up with a trio of superpowered kids who are looking for East River, a sanctuary for superpowered kids smart, resourceful, and lucky enough to get there.
But Ruby doesn’t trust her new friends either; thanks to her powers, she doesn’t even trust herself. She just wants to get to the East River without any trouble— which means that no one can find out who she really is, or what she can really do.
The Darkest Minds is a slow-burning dystopia that sucks you in and keeps you gripped until the last page. I personally loved it, as much for the nostalgia as the content of the book itself. However, if books that take their sweet time getting where they’re going aren’t your thing, The Darkest Minds might not be your thing.
This week’s recipe is crispy baked pesto chicken, because honestly, that sounds delicious, and I can’t wait to try it.
Thanks to Natalie over at Tastes Lovely for this week’s recipe!
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