ARC Review: Mind Games by Kiersten White

Mind Games

by Kiersten White

Series: Mind Games #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 19, 2013
Source: Publisher/Edelweiss

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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.

Review

Mind Games has a gorgeous cover. This is an unarguable point. The huge question is whether the beauty on the outside will be reflected by awesomeness on the inside. Honestly, I've been having a hard time deciding how to review this book. There were aspects that I really enjoyed and then other parts that left me kind of puzzled.

There was a point about thirty pages into Mind Games that I considered DNFing the book. It all boiled down to the writing style. White takes a creative approach and goes into the stream of consciousness mode. Now, the only book I've read in stream of consciousness happened to be a Faulkner novel. The Sound and the Fury. Needless to say, I tend to dislike books that use this type of style. In the end, the writing just grated on me. But this really does hinge on personal preferences.

Mind Games is a minimalist book on many fronts. Not much description and  all the present action takes place in the span of three days. The past scenes were the best portion of the book because that's where we got characterization and when stuff seemed to actually be happening.

Now this is why it's so difficult to review this book. I disliked the writing style but I loved the characters. Fia is angry and broken, and being used to assassinate people. She's pretty f-ed up. Annie has been used as leverage to keep her doing bad things. That's pretty f-ed up too. And what White succeeds at so brilliantly is actually making me feel for these characters, despite the run-on sentences and constant parenthetical interjections.

The plot involves powers with the generic term of Readers, Feelers, and Seers. There's really not much to this. People are controlling Fia and Anna. That's basically what it boils down to. So I would actually say that the internal battles and choices are much more engaging then the overall plot of the story. One of the funniest aspects is how Fia wards off Readers (telepaths) by chanting songs and curse words in her mind. I loved her!

The romance is broken and dark and complicated. Which is the best kind. James is a hot guy in charge of keeping Fia under control. It's a relationship that I liked reading even though it clearly has its issues. Adam...this is an insta-love alert. But no love triangle in sight. Pleasantly, surprised.

So overall, it's kind of a toss-up. I hated the writing. I loved the characters. The plot was pretty generic. So what does Mind Games really come down to? Preference. If you can look past the stream of consciousness (or if you like it) then you will no doubt fall in love with the book. For me, it wasn't something I could look past but I can appreciate what Kiersten White was trying to achieve.

A generic plot intertwined with a writing style that left me craving more details, but characters that I loved and rooted for.