Scan barcode
A review by bookph1le
Mind Games by Kiersten White
5.0
Wow! I loved this book from beginning to end. It's a stellar psychological thriller. More complete review to come.
Complete review:
From the very first page of this book, I was drawn into the world White created. At first, I thought the setting was in the future, but then I realized this was a sort of urban fantasy with psychics. It could have been cheesy, but White handles it in a way that I found utterly convincing. Warning: some pretty big spoilers to follow.
First, I loved the set up because White takes just enough truth and uses it to make her rather fantastical plot work. Keane is such a sinister villain precisely because I could see someone using psychics the way he does. While there are some glimpses of just how long Keane's reach is--senators, the stock market, major corporations--there is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the extent of his power, and I found that a fantastic build up for a second book in the series. I bought the plot completely because I'm sure that if psychics did exist, unscrupulous business people would, in fact, take advantage of their existence.
I was also fascinated by what this book had to say about corruption. Though the school is set up with the best of intentions, it ultimately becomes a perverted, twisted version of its original purpose, and I believed that this could drive James's mother to despair. It also provides some indirect characterization of his father. Keane is one of the best villains I've read in YA lit in a long time, precisely because he is subtle, a bit unknowable, and evil in a very sinister way. It's good, for once, to read a book that doesn't have a mustache-twirling villain.
The relationship dynamic between Fia and Annie is fantastic. White does a wonderful job of exploring how the emotional ties that bind two people have an overwhelming power to affect lives. Annie never sets out to destroy her sister, but she's implicated in Fia's downward spiral precisely because her desire to hold onto what she really wants precludes doing what's in her sister's best interest. Their relationship is complicated, not always smooth, and this makes it very believable. While Annie and Fia both love one another, they also resent one another and, sometimes, even come close to hating one another. It was fascinating to watch the give and take between the two of them, to see how their attempts at protecting one another sometimes failed spectacularly, and to watch how each was willing to sacrifice significantly for the other.
The only element of the book that didn't utterly convince me was James. Right now, he's a little too close to being the boring, typical YA bad boy, but because I understand there is to be a second book in this series, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. What I did like about him, though, is that he is very grey. By turns, I alternately felt maybe he was trying to do the right thing and became convinced that he was just as bad as his father, but in a different way. I still really have no idea what his agenda is, and I like that aspect of the book. I'm hoping that there will be a good payoff in the end, one way or another.
I felt this book was exactly what it billed itself as being: an intense psychological thriller. Yes, there are some action scenes, but most of the plot of the book centers around the relationship between the two sisters. I thought this was a great strength as I don't often read taut, psychological YA thrillers. It may be that I'm just not reading the right books. Whatever it is, I'd love to see more books like this one. I sometimes get the sense that books are made into series for purely commercial reasons, often to the detriment of the story, but this is definitely one book that left me anxious to read more.
Complete review:
From the very first page of this book, I was drawn into the world White created. At first, I thought the setting was in the future, but then I realized this was a sort of urban fantasy with psychics. It could have been cheesy, but White handles it in a way that I found utterly convincing. Warning: some pretty big spoilers to follow.
First, I loved the set up because White takes just enough truth and uses it to make her rather fantastical plot work. Keane is such a sinister villain precisely because I could see someone using psychics the way he does. While there are some glimpses of just how long Keane's reach is--senators, the stock market, major corporations--there is still a great deal of mystery surrounding the extent of his power, and I found that a fantastic build up for a second book in the series. I bought the plot completely because I'm sure that if psychics did exist, unscrupulous business people would, in fact, take advantage of their existence.
I was also fascinated by what this book had to say about corruption. Though the school is set up with the best of intentions, it ultimately becomes a perverted, twisted version of its original purpose, and I believed that this could drive James's mother to despair. It also provides some indirect characterization of his father. Keane is one of the best villains I've read in YA lit in a long time, precisely because he is subtle, a bit unknowable, and evil in a very sinister way. It's good, for once, to read a book that doesn't have a mustache-twirling villain.
The relationship dynamic between Fia and Annie is fantastic. White does a wonderful job of exploring how the emotional ties that bind two people have an overwhelming power to affect lives. Annie never sets out to destroy her sister, but she's implicated in Fia's downward spiral precisely because her desire to hold onto what she really wants precludes doing what's in her sister's best interest. Their relationship is complicated, not always smooth, and this makes it very believable. While Annie and Fia both love one another, they also resent one another and, sometimes, even come close to hating one another. It was fascinating to watch the give and take between the two of them, to see how their attempts at protecting one another sometimes failed spectacularly, and to watch how each was willing to sacrifice significantly for the other.
The only element of the book that didn't utterly convince me was James. Right now, he's a little too close to being the boring, typical YA bad boy, but because I understand there is to be a second book in this series, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. What I did like about him, though, is that he is very grey. By turns, I alternately felt maybe he was trying to do the right thing and became convinced that he was just as bad as his father, but in a different way. I still really have no idea what his agenda is, and I like that aspect of the book. I'm hoping that there will be a good payoff in the end, one way or another.
I felt this book was exactly what it billed itself as being: an intense psychological thriller. Yes, there are some action scenes, but most of the plot of the book centers around the relationship between the two sisters. I thought this was a great strength as I don't often read taut, psychological YA thrillers. It may be that I'm just not reading the right books. Whatever it is, I'd love to see more books like this one. I sometimes get the sense that books are made into series for purely commercial reasons, often to the detriment of the story, but this is definitely one book that left me anxious to read more.