The Darkest Plague

The Darkest Minds

By Alexandra Bracken

Genre: Dystopian

A dark, dark world where there is little hope we meet our main character Ruby. A plague has ravaged America, killing most of its children between the ages of 8-14. Some of those children survived, and for some reason those survivors have been gifted with incredible powers (think X-Men). However, scared of these children, the government has gathered all the children into internment camps.

Before reading this book, know that it is not the happiest of books. Ruby deals with poor treatment and torture in the camp she was sent to. She meets friends, Liam, Chubs, and Zu, who are all running from various organizations bent on using their powers for their own agendas. Without giving too much away, the story revolves around Ruby and these friends running, finding sanctuary, and having it ripped from them again and again. The heart of the story is how they deal and how they stick together.

Truly, I enjoyed this book. It is dark, it is heart-wrenching, but it is good. Ruby has such a fantastic character arc, that she's fast becoming a favourite character of mine. It reminds us of how easily we can mistreat the people that we do not understand. We've seen it in history - World War II, with Hitler's “Death Camps”, and in Canada, the Japanese Internment camps.

One itty-bitty complaint comes from not being American. The whole novel it talks about the plague in America, but rarely (if at all) does it give us a glimpse at what is happening with the rest of the world. I want to know how the world is dealing with this plague. I find it highly improbable that it would only strike American-born children. Understandably, Ruby has no way of knowing about the rest of the world, but outside non-interment-prisoner characters could easily give us little tidbits or brief tv news casts.

In this series, book 1.5 “In Time”(a novella), book 2 is “Never Fade”, and the concluding book 3 is coming out this year, 2014.

 5/5 STARS

Classroom use: This novel is lengthy (488 pages) and is therefore not practical for classroom use. However, for students interested in dystopian, I would recommend this one for sure.

Cover Note: I love the cover. Before reading the book it was only ok. I read the book, it's perfect. The trident on the front is symbolic.