My Teenage Angst Looks Like a Cakewalk Now

Thank you Even Stevens! You are a wonderful, wonderful person.  A few weeks ago, this post showed up on Cannonball Read:

“The darkest minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces”

And I took notice…because the book looked bad ass!  And Even Stevens was so enthusiastic about it–it was quickly moved up on my must read list (so much so that I neglected my book club book and focused on this instead).

Let me tell you what? I loved it too!  Something has caused the children of the US to die at a rapid rate.  While parents are worried about their children dying, it turns out, the government is more concerned with the children who live.  These children begin developing strange powers and are called PSIs, quickly they’re taken to internment camps for “national security” and are divided up based on their abilities.  Children are either blues, greens, yellows, oranges and reds and as you read, you learn what powers each of the colors entail.

The US has pretty much fallen apart.  The president, trying to “contain” the problem of mutant children and hide the atrocities of the experimentation upon these children; triggers chaos, fear and pretty much a near dystopia. When (it’s inevitable) our main character Ruby, is able to get out of her camp she meets up with Suzume (a mute Yellow), Chubs (a very non-chubby but very intelligent kid-Green. I’m actually not sure what he was, but since he’s good with tech, I”ll go with it) and Lee (a natural born leader and a Blue).  With them they seek to find the Slip Kid (an Orange who has been able to use his powers to evade the powers that be numerous times and has a secret compound for kids of all levels to hide in safety).  Ruby feels like a monster because as an Orange, she can control others, read their memories and manipulate their thoughts and influence them to do as she says.  She’s hoping that if she finds the Slip Kid, perhaps he can help her harness her powers because some dark stuff has happened to those she loved because she was unable to control them.

I have the same little criticism as Even Stevens in that there are a few portions of the plot where I was inwardly screaming, “NO! Can’t you see ____________?”  ________ is a bad guy/girl!”  “___________ is going to use you!”  “Oh _________! You go with your bad self!”  “___________No! not that person! I love that person!”  (all major spoilers redacted for your enjoyment and confusion).  If you want a solid action story with a female lead who’s learning to become a strong woman, I think this would be for you.  I’m sure that some people would make comparisons to the Divergent series and to that I say, “BAH” (sorry if you liked it, you’ll probably like this even more!  If you didn’t like Divergent I feel confident saying that you will enjoy this because Ruby is not like Tris and so far things aren’t just happening to happen).  Also, because I’m a nerd and all, the woven connection the book Watership Down throughout this book really hits home as book one ends.  I’m downloading book two now and given that I read the first one in less than 24 hours, I feel confident that I’ll have the next one read by tomorrow!

Side note:  There’s also either going to be a TV adaptation or movie (I’m not sure) that’s going to be developed by the creator of Wayward Pines. I think I’d like to see that happen