I say this in every review, THE DARKEST MINDS trilogy is my favourite YA dystopian series. What makes these books awesome is not the plot, but the characters and the relationships. Most dystopian books heavily focus on introducing a new imperfect world, determined to bring something fresh on the table. Bracken focuses on her characters. The book begins with Ruby separated from her friends, and how she eventually finds them all.

In book 1, Ruby was written as someone always afraid of her own powers and the world she was stuck in. She is daring in book 2, she is courageous and she knows exactly what she wants. If this is not an excellent character development, I don't know what is. Chubs remains my ult fav, his friendship with Ruby which started rockily and steadily turned to trust is the best written relation in the book. It is super platonic and I won't have it in any other way. They were not fond of each other and now, the moment they meet again, we get a tearful reunion and a mental breakdown and did I shed a tear too? Yes I did and I regret nothing. I wish we can get more books with friendships like these. Speaking of which, I was glad to see Zu to be okay. Liam wasn't doing so well in the book and he still doesn't remember Ruby but Bracken did justice to his story arc.

The way she introduced disease in a world like this, raise the stakes higher than before. It showed that problems of these kids hiding and running for their lives do not just end with being captured or brainwashed. There are dangers of living without resources and Bracken doesn't hold back on showing that. I also loved Cole as a character, he is not a hero and there is a grey line there, but I am here for complex family ties and drama.

All in all, this was a solid sequel and this series remain to me the most memorable YA dystopian from 2010's era. This book, I can always go back to.

For more reviews, you can follow me on bookstagram (book_ventures96).