Darkest Minds Books In Order

Publication Order of The Darkest Minds Books

“The Darkest Minds” is a trilogy of novels that was written by New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Bracken. It’s science fiction for young adults and is a trilogy. It involves action, adventure, a dystopian world and some romance. There are also some scenes of torture, blood spattering, and rape and other things like that.

Ruby Daly, has survived a plague that has wiped out most (98%) of the kids after the age of nine. Kids that survive past age nine, go through a change, developing powers- unbeknownst to the kids- and their parents are forced to send them to Thurmond. While she’s there, she does not talk to anyone much, mostly keeps to herself. On her tenth birthday, her parents noticed the change in Ruby and chained up their daughter in the garage and called the authorities to take her away.

Her powers include being able to influence other people’s minds. Some of the kids are killed by the adults because the adults view them as a threat and are not sure what the kids will do to them. After leaving the camps, she still has to deal with the psychological damage of being in one of these camps and the fact that it was her parents who turned her in. As well as all the things that are currently going on around her on a daily basis.

“The Darkest Minds”, the first book in “The Darkest Minds” series was released in 2012. This book is about Ruby, a girl who lives in a dystopian future where the mass majority of kids have died due to a strange disease before they turn ten. Those who live past nine are sent to a harsh place called a “rehabilitation camp” set up by the government called Thurmond. The goal of having them at the camp is to see what mental powers the children have, and sort them into different groups. There’s Green (super intelligent), Blue (telekinesis), Yellow (can control electricity), Red (can control fire), and Orange (has power over the mind). Yellow, Red, and Orange are viewed as the most dangerous of the groups.

Ruby has developed special powers, she is an orange, and she survives the odd disease that kills most kids before the age of ten. When she turns sixteen, she escapes the camp with some help, and finds there are other kids like her. She meets Liam, who is a blue, and they become friends, but with the possibility that it will become more. She has been in the rehabilitation camp for about six years without seeing the outside world at all; she has missed many things in all that time. They try to get her to their headquarters, a safe haven for kids like them; where there is a group called The Children’s League, it is East River. Once they arrive to the safe haven, the other kids want to use her in their war against the government.

Readers praised this book for its dark tone, how depressing the subject matter is, its fast pace, and how it just hooked them in so that they actually care about the characters. The concept was viewed by these readers to be horrific, the fact that there’s so many adults killing kids, and often times kids are being turned in to be taken to Thurmond by their own parents. Fans of these books say she is a young author to watch. Readers like that there were a lot of plot twists and how the author developed all the characters in the book and how human they are. A few readers of “The Darkest Minds” found that Ruby was a weak character, and relied too heavily on men, and that she had low self esteem. One reviewer claimed that she lacked a personality. The order of events has also been criticized in this book. The fans that didn’t like it said that it was the same as all the other current young adult novels.

“Never Fade” was released in late 2013, and is the second book in the series. This book is about the continuing adventures of Ruby. In this book, she is leading missions to destroy all that the vicious government has created. The other kids in their organization refer to her as their leader, but she believes she is a monster. After she determines that the adults in charge of the league are just as corrupt as the government, she decides to leave the league behind her. She sets off with a friend, to search for information on the plague that killed all the children. Her mission is to find a friend who she met in the first book, Liam, and has all the information she needs. Part of the book deals with the kids trying to survive on the land and whatever survival training they have had in their lives out in the wild.

This book was criticized for using more profanity than the first book. Just like the first one, however, the book got praised for making you get attached to the characters, and hurt when they get hurt. It has also been called depressing, because of the fact it deals with killing kids. Also, it’s been criticized that there is not enough back story on some of the characters, which makes it difficult to figure out their motivations. Some readers felt that the government conspiracy was never fully explained; others said not a whole lot happens in this book.

Fans of the “Divergent” trilogy by Veronica Roth will enjoy this series too.

The rights to make the series into movies has been optioned by Twentieth Century Fox. It is set to come out in 2016. No details yet on who will be in the movie, but Chad Hodge is set to write the script, and will be produced by Shawn Levy.

Besides writing the “Darkest Minds” series, Bracken has written the “Passenger” series, which will start coming out in 2016, a novelization of “Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope”, and a novel called “Brightly Woven”. As well as a group of novellas all set in the “Darkest Minds” universe, set to come out in 2015. All before the age of thirty.