Review: Mind Games by Kiersten White

Mind Games

by Kiersten White

Fia was born with flawless instincts. Her first impulse, her gut feeling, is always exactly right. Her sister, Annie, is blind to the world around her—except when her mind is gripped by strange visions of the future.
Trapped in a school that uses girls with extraordinary powers as tools for corporate espionage, Annie and Fia are forced to choose over and over between using their abilities in twisted, unthinkable ways…or risking each other’s lives by refusing to obey.
In a stunning departure from her New York Times bestselling Paranormalcy trilogy, Kiersten White delivers a slick, edgy, heartstoppingly intense psychological thriller about two sisters determined to protect each other—no matter the cost

 

Hardcover, 237 pages

Published February 19th 2013 by HarperTeen

 

A Long Story...Short!

This book scores with a world that literally plays games on your mind and messes with your brain - the abilities people have in this book did not only scare me at times - they also made me kind of paranoid as I was reading. Apart from that, though, I was not very fond of this story. The plot dragged a lot - in my opinion. The main characters got on my nerves - each in their very unique way. The unexpected ending caught my attention and made up for the rest of the book a bit, but I'm still not sure if I want to continue this series and Overall I expected a lot more.

 

RATING:

1/3 Smarties

Review for You:

I'd never read a book by Kiersten White before and I blame part of my disappointment on that. I expected something along the lines of how I imagined the Paranormalcy series to be - which was probably a bit too hypothetical to begin with. 

However, it's not like I hated this whole book. There were certain aspects I found really good. Mainly the premise - the mind-related abilities some people have in this Story were really original. It becomes terrifying after just a couple of pages, you always have to fear that someone will guess the heroine's thoughts or see what she plans. It creates a very...thrilling feeling throughout the book. 

It got too much, though, from a very early moment on.

It's not only the constant paranoia, it's also Fia's weird thought process emphasized by White's writing. I mean, I know that was probably the most important part of the book, but it just got on my nerves. One example? Fia was always thinking the words "wrong, wrong, wrong" and even though I know that was elemental to the plot - and later on it became even more brilliant - I couldn't help but want to throw my Kindle against a wall.

To make things worse, there was Annie. Woah. The way I see her, she is just a whiny, annoying sidekick that I was sick of as soon as she appeared on the pages. Whenever the story was told from her point of view, it took all my motivation and discipline to continue reading. 

Also, something I really don't like? When there's no real villain in a book. That, sadly, was the case in Mind Games. The big bad boy is talked about and he has some little helpers from whom we don't always know of if they're evil or not, but he never appears. He never really does something. And I want to know why he's doing all these evil things. And how he started building his evil institution! And what he plans to achieve with it! 

What I want to say is: I missed background information. A reason for this story to happen. I wanted plot twists to be unraveled instead of hearing the story of two sisters and their tragic childhood.

All in all, there were aspects I did like about this book, like the butt kicking Fia and the premise and ending of this book. However, the novel itself, everything between the first few and the last few pages was not enough for me to recommend it.