The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken

When Ruby woke up on her tenth birthday, something about her had changed. Something alarming enough to make her parents lock her in the garage and call the police. Something that gets her sent to Thurmond, a brutal government “rehabilitation camp.” She might have survived the mysterious disease that’s killed most of America’s children, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse: frightening abilities they cannot control.

Now sixteen, Ruby is one of the dangerous ones.

When the truth comes out, Ruby barely escapes Thurmond with her life. Now she’s on the run, desperate to find the one safe haven left for kids like her—East River. She joins a group of kids who escaped their own camp. Liam, their brave leader, is falling hard for Ruby. But no matter how much she aches for him, Ruby can’t risk getting close. Not after what happened to her parents.

When they arrive at East River, nothing is as it seems, least of all its mysterious leader. But there are other forces at work, people who will stop at nothing to use Ruby in their fight against the government. Ruby will be faced with a terrible choice, one that may mean giving up her only chance at a life worth living. @goodreads

MY REVIEW:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/12810239

I loved this book. I felt sorry for these kids that had to go through this stuff. Most often, at the age of 10, all of the children would develop abilities and the majority of their parents would send them off to camps. Instead of helping the children manage these abilities, the camp either kept them around forever, or they killed certain ones.

At these camps the children were labeled with colors with, red and orange being the most dangerous and pretty much killed right off the bat. I'm sure if they did the right thing and tried to help them with these abilities there would still be some evil kids, but that's life.

Some of the kids get away or they hide when they start to develop their powers. It's a pretty sad existence.

Ruby is one of the children taken away after her parents called for her to be picked up. She was in the camp at Thurmond from age 10 through age 16 when she was broken out by a so called good team of grown-ups. I'm not sure about these people yet as you know how adults are!

They make a pit stop and Ruby spots a little girl scavenging for food. She follows her and ends up with this little rag tag team of kids who are trying to get to a sort of safe haven. The little girl is named Zu and the other two are Chubs and Liam. I loved Zu and Liam right off the bat, you have to learn to like ole Chubs, he's a little cranky. I would probably be just like him, but worse!

Ruby is hiding the color she truly is from the other kids. She's afraid they will want to get rid of her. She wants to meet the other kid at the safe haven that is just like her.

These poor kids have bounty hunters, guards from the camps and those people from the other place after them. That's a lot of people to have to hide from! Needless to say some major stuff goes down and they end up finding out who Ruby really is as she has to use her powers to help save them.

They finally make it to camp and find out the other kid is leading the group. Anddddddd.... it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

The ending makes me mad and I hope it turns out ok in the next book. I probably shouldn't hope for anything good, half the time it's something bad!!

Overall, I think it's a great book and I really enjoyed it!   4 Stars