Review: Mind Games by Kiersten White

Title: Mind Games
Author: Kiersten White
Series: Mind Games
Book #: 1
Pages: 256
Reading Level: YA
Book Rating: .5
Goodreads Rating: 3.98
Published: Feb. 19th, 2013

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.

Taschima's POV:

It seems you either love this book, or you hate it. I personally loved it. Does that say something of me as a reader? I don't think so. I think everybody is entertained by different things, and I was overly entertained by Mind Games. I am in for the story, and the story was good. Everything from the writing style to the characters was enjoyable, and I cannot wait for the second book to come out!

Mind Games is the story of two sisters with supernatural abilities. Annie is the blind older sisters that can ironically only see when she sees the future, and Fia is the younger sister who has incredibly good instincts. As young girls they lose their parents and so they move in with their aunt, who is not happy she has to take care of these two kids. So the moment an opportunity appears to take these two girls from her hands she takes it. This is how the girls end up in the Keane School for special girls. The school offers Annie the world, and so she is overjoyed to join, Fia on the other hand can't ever get this feeling of wrongness out of her chest. As you guessed, the school is evil. And they don't want Annie's abilities, they want Fia's.

This school is wrong, I know it is. I want to know why, because if I know why, then maybe it won't make me feel sick all the time. If there's a reason why it's wrong, then I am not crazy for feeling this way. (I'm not crazy, I'm not.)

The novel is written in stream of consciousness, at least when it comes to Fia (she is the character we spend most of our time with even though the book is told from both sister's POV). Fia could be describing a scene and then in parenthesis the writer would put in what exactly is going through Fia's mind in that second. I liked this. It kind of reminds me of how Shatter Me is written, with the repeated words and disjointed narration. I loved Shatter Me as well. So if you liked Shatter Me's writing style you will not have a problem with Mind Games'.

Some sort of accident.
Some sort of accident.
Some sort of accident.
My brain sticks on that phrase, like a skipping CD, repeating it over and over.

I think the way it was written fitted the character's situation and lives. They are broken, scared, afraid, and have no options. Fia is, to be honest, a little insane and homicidal most of the time. Annie on the other hand is trapped (she is the only thing they have as leverage against Fia) and clever, for the most part. Even though most of her tries to help her sister ultimately fail... They have very distinct voices, in how their narration is written and their personality, again for the most part. They also have a lot of similarities, like for example their innate need to protect each other at any cost. Annie is the older sister, which makes their relationship that much more interesting. Because it's usually the younger sister who is overly vulnerable in novels and in need of protection, but in this novel they are both equally vulnerable, just in different ways. They have a long way to repair their sort of broken relationship. They need to admit some hard truths to each other that's for sure, second book?

There are also some other secondary characters. Like James and Adam for example. They are the potential love interests, love triangle? Interestingly no, but at the same time maybe? For me the most interesting of the two is James. He is the evil boss' son. He is wicked, and ambitious, and surprisingly vulnerable at times. But the thing is the whole novel Kiersten never gives up her hand on whether James is to be trusted or not, he is a very interesting character in that he will definitely keep you guessing. Cause no matter what he says you always know he is hiding something deep inside. Adam on the other hand is the perfect picture of the nice boy next door with his huge smile and caring traits and... blah. He was too much of a good boy without an ounce of trouble, kind of made me yawn. So, I am not sure I trust James but at least he keeps me interested.

There are some things about the books that make you wonder, like for example Keane, the evilest evil of them all, supposedly has all these girls who can see the future, but none of them ever seem to catch on to what either Annie or Fia are planning to do, even a glimpse of their future. Is it because they haven't been trained to focus on those girls? Maybe they all have been trained to focus on the future of other people in specific, but you would think they'd at least make one track Annie's future... Anyways I have a bunch of questions when it comes to the school, and the many other attendees, that we did not get that much info on. But I am hoping that the second book helps explain the intricacies of the world and it's history. Why do these girls in particular have these powers? Where do they come from? etc etc.

As it stands Ming Games was a beautiful introduction into a very exciting dark world that is bound to keep you flipping the pages way into the night. I know I did.