TITLE: The Darkest Legacy
AUTHOR: Alexandra Bracken
RATING OVERVIEW
Writing: ★★★★
Story: ★★★★
Characters: ★★★★
Appearance: ★★★★
Overall: ★★★★ (4)
AMAZON DESCRIPTION:
The long-awaited new novel in the New York Times best-selling Darkest Minds series, now a major motion picture.
Five years after the destruction of the so-called rehabilitation camps that imprisoned her and countless other Psi kids, seventeen-year-old Suzume “Zu” Kimura has assumed the role of spokesperson for the interim government, fighting for the rights of Psi kids against a growing tide of misinformation and prejudice. But when she is accused of committing a horrifying act, she is forced to go on the run once more in order to stay alive.
Determined to clear her name, Zu finds herself in an uncomfortable alliance with Roman and Priyanka, two mysterious Psi who could either help her prove her innocence or betray her before she gets the chance. But as they travel in search of safety and answers, and Zu grows closer to the people she knows she shouldn’t trust, they uncover even darker things roiling beneath the veneer of the country’s recovery. With her future-and the future of all Psi-on the line, Zu must use her powerful voice to fight back against forces that seek to drive the Psi into the shadows and save the friends who were once her protectors.
From #1 New York Times best-selling author Alexandra Bracken comes a harrowing story of resilience, resistance, and reckoning that will thrill loyal fans and new readers alike.
Buy it HERE on Amazon!
THE CRITICAL POINTS
I was bound to read The Darkest Legacy at some point. I LOVED the first four books in the series and was just waiting to get through a stack of other “to read” books on my desk before I cracked the spine on this one… also, I didn’t read much in November since I was busy with NaNoWriMo. With that said, let’s get into the book…
WRITING: There is no doubt that Bracken is a talented writer. She has an amazingly creative mind and she is successful at painting a picture with her words. With that said, I think that this books felt a bit rushed… not as much detail… in some spots and too much mundane detail in other spots.
STORY: I had a hard time accepting that the final book in the series was from a completely different perspective. The story didn’t seem to have a really driving force. Zu is a speaker for the government, there is a staged bombing set up by who knows who, Zu goes on the run with two completely new to the reader characters and along the way discovers that Ruby and Liam are missing. Zu’s focus becomes finding Ruby and Liam… even though they haven’t been in the book at all. MORE HERE
It was around page 300 that I started caring about what was going to happen in the book, but not until the last six or seven chapters that the book really started to have the same feel as the previous books in the series. It was those last few chapters that pulled at my mind, tugged at my heart-strings, and made me remember exactly why I loved the series and why I’ll probably pick up anything Alexandra Bracken writes just to see what she comes up with next. No, it wasn’t my favorite of her books, but read it for the ending… I wasn’t disappointed and I don’t think you will be either.
CHARACTERS: I’m not going to lie, I missed the interaction between the main characters within the previous books on this series. It was hard to get into reading from Zu’s perspective at first and I didn’t really feel anything toward Zu, Priyanka, or Roman at first. It wasn’t until about 300 pages in that I actually started caring for the characters, what was going to happen to them, or how their story would end. That isn’t to say that Bracken didn’t do a good job with character development, she did. I just think there could have been more relationship development to make the reader really invested in the characters more.
APPEARANCE: Like the other books in The Darkest Mind series, I think this one is beautifully done. I wish she had kept with a similar style, but seeing as she changed voices from Ruby’s perspective to that of Suzume “Zu”, I suppose a change in look was needed as well. It isn’t my favorite of the covers, but it gets the job done. Even if I hadn’t already intended to read it, I would have picked it up at the books store and at a minimum checked out the back blurb.
MY FAVORITE QUOTES:
“I was still on my feet. There was still breath in my lungs. I wasn’t fine, but I was strong. And I was going to use every ounce of my power to get us the hell out of here.”
“I’m going to remind you that heroes frequently die, but the morally mediocre people almost always live to see another day. Don’t do anything that’s going to piss me off.” ~ Priyanka
Nina Soden 