Mind Games (Mind Games, #1)

by Kiersten White

Emily Bauer (Narrator)

"Seventeen-year-old Fia and her sister, Annie, are trapped in a school that uses young female psychics and mind readers as tools for corporate espionage--and if Fia doesn't play by the rules of their deadly game, Annie will be killed"--Provided by pub.

• ISBN10: 0062224530
• ISBN13: 9780062224538
• Publish Date: 19 February 2013
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperTeen
• Edition: Unabridged edition
• Format: Audiobook (MP3)
• Duration: 6 hours and 11 minutes
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Now, I have read five of Kiersten White's books, and I feel as through my attachment to them varies. She has fantastic concepts, and always uses a new twist on her stories that I have no doubt whatsoever appeal to younger readers. I liked her Paranormalcy triolgy and was a little disappointed in The Chaos of the Stars.

Mind Games was right in the middle. Yes, the two sisters felt similar. Yes, the bouncing around in first person between two characters in both past and present was annoying. But the story? The story was really good. Enough secrets were unearthed that I wasn't frustrated with plot progression, and enough remained buried that I certainly intend to read the next book.

White writes with an edge I really like. She is witty and opinionated and believes in strong, original female characters that have every right to fall in love, but don't lose themselves in it, and I think that distinction is very important and certainly separates her from most of the YA Teen Romance writers. I really like her.

I also liked Fia. I think it's her best character, from what I've read of her so far.

[Linda]

Mind Games is eerily creepy, mysterious and a little scary. I loved getting to know Fia, Annie and James!

Full review to come soon. This and all my other reviews are originally posted on my blog (un)Conventional Bookviews

[celinenyx]

4.5 Stars

Mind Games blew me away with its original and honest approach of two girls dependent going through hell.

Annie can see the future in visions, even though her eyes are blind. Fia has impeccable instincts. Together they are held captive in a school, run by men with immense power, and no morals.

Mind Games is written in a dual perspective of Annie and Fia, with flashbacks at different points in time. The story has a kind of messy structure and a lot of time is spent in the past, but this worked out very well for the book. The prose, especially Fia's, is close to the stream of conciousness style. Fia is mentally unstable, and being in her head is a very uncomfortable experience. Since a young age Fia has been trained to spy on, and worse, kill people. Because of this she well, has lost some of her marbles. I think this part of the story was done extremely well. So many stories with assassins have them be just kind of... numb yet socially functioning. In Fia we see more of a repressed anger, of feelings she can't face, which in my opinion felt so much more real.

Fia and Annie have an interesting sister dynamic. On one hand, they love each other. On the other they are so dependant on each other that they cannot stand it. Their push-and-pull was absorbing, and people that are fan of the sister-dynamics in Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce will probably like this one.

Mind Games is a very short book that just flew by for me. I read this in the train and it got me so immersed that I completely forgot where I was. Luckily I have to get out at the end station, otherwise I might have had a problem. There is plenty of great fighting scenes and more emotional ones sprinkled in between. I think this book is quite peculiar though, so if you're not sure, I would recommend reading a sample if possible. It stays away from the linear naturalistic kind of prose, and makes it into something more organic.

[violetpeanut]

Loved it! Lots of action and fight scenes that were well-written, complex characters who reacted realistically to crazy circumstances, a bit of romance that didn't overwhelm the rest of the plot and a storyline that kept me guessing. I can't wait to read the next one.

[inlibrisveritas]

Kiersten White has created a really interesting unknown world within our own, one that includes incredible powers and espionage. However despite the creativity I found some issues with the characters and my ability to truly connect with them.

Annie and Fia are caught in the middle as they are lied to and placed in positions of danger. Fia must use her highly in-tuned instincts to stay alive, complete her missions and keep her sister from meeting a dire end. I tried to like Fia despite her flaws. She’s had to put up with a lot and while some of rash decisions made me want to shake her I understood why she chose to do the things she did. Her feirce loyalty to her sister is admirable and I really like her determination to get out of the grip of corporation’s grip, but I found her personality to be really rough. It’s understandable that she ahs some anger issues but she’s moody all the time. Her fighting skills are fantastic though and I really enjoyed the action scenes. Annie was a character that I flip flopped on. I really like her personality and how she is Fia’s opposite, but she does some pretty stupid things and just added to the frustration. Her POV is really interesting though and I enjoed her sections more at times. It’s different to have a blind character and I liked the uniqueness of her voice, I just wish she didn’t make me slap my forehead so hard. James is supposed to be the suave character with a dangerous edge, but I found him to be completely insufferable most of the time. He’s full of himself and I didn’t really understand how he could say he cared for someone and then treat their family so poorly. I barely understood Fia’s attraction to him and it honestly just flat out annoyed me. Adam in comparison is much better, but I didn’t really see much of a reason to become invested in the budding relationship with Fia. I do like that he adds a bit of zen to her outright anger though and I really hope to see the relationship turn into something fantastic.

The plot moves back and forth between fast pace to meandering, and while I enjoyed the action scenes I found my attention wandering when things slowed down. I understood why Fia had to go along with the plans James made for her, but I really didn’t understand much of a point in certain sections of the book. Especially now that I’ve had a ton of time to think over it. I did however like the interesting set up of powers and the secret espionage of the big corporations, and I definitely like the level of tension that continued throughout the novel.

Despite all my issues with it I really did enjoy Mind Games and I really liked the thriller feel of it. I’m really hoping that the story and the character improves in the next book. I would love to see Fia and Annie become something more and I would love for Adam to be a bit more fleshed out.

[Kelly]

I couldn't get through it. The points of view and flashbacks were driving me bonkers.

[ladygrey]

This is a quick, short but I was instantly impressed with how much story there was. It's full of character and action and thought and dialog and emotion and only the description that's needed. It engaged me from the first sentence and kept me interested because it was all the things I needed to know about the characters and the story without explaining what chairs looked like before Fia hit someone over the head with them.

If I had liked the characters less I might complain that the story could have gone deeper - but a part of me is glad we didn't spend pages in the training rooms with Fia or through the years the book covers. It was tightly written and I really enjoyed that.

Because it didn't feel hollow or sparse. The flashbacks were effective in giving context to characters I was interested in. All the characters, in fact, were complex and fully formed and interesting and I liked the world she built so quickly and I loved how the ending provided a complete story but also kept the door wide open for a sequel. And I would definitely come back for another round.

And I really loved how she wrapped the ending. Fia's first action defies the Keanes and fills her with fear and uncertainty. But then the last choice she makes sets her free from the Keanes - is more powerful than her initial defiance and all the while she's declaring how she chooses them and that she belongs to them. It's a beautiful narrative parallel.

I also didn't love Annabelle. She was sweet and well meaning but she was also painfully naive. On one hand I liked that the psychic was the weaker character because that's so rarely done but also I'd really like to see her grow and see more from her in a sequel.

This is such a tight, quick read that it reminded me of [a:James Patterson|3780|James Patterson|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1284492096p2/3780.jpg] only with an utterly fantastic world and interesting characters.

[Stephanie]

I was really excited about the book when I first heard about it. But then the reviews started to come in, and a lot of them weren't so good. But I'm very happy that I decided to read it because I loved it.

First off, White gets bonus points for having some of the setting in St. Louis. That never seems to happen, so that was really fun to read for me.

I really liked how the story alternated between Fia and Annie and between the past and present. I went into the book knowing that this could possibly get confusing, but it wasn't at all. I really liked that something would be brought up during the present, and then it would switch to the past to explain what they just brought up. Like, Fia would mention a character was dead during the present, and then it would switch to the past and explain how the character died. It was very interesting because it's not something I see in books often.

Fia is such a messed up character, it was fascinating to read about. There's such a big difference from the way Fia acts and thinks to the way Annie does. It really shows just how messed up Fia really is. Especially with all the tap tap taps.

That's another think I was worried about. I knew there were a lot of tap, tap, taps and repitition of words, that I was afraid it would get on my nerves. But it didn't, it made Fia that much more interesting.

Also, THE ENDING, I think I know what happened, but then... WHAT?

[anastasia]

Review posted at SoManyBooksSoLittleTime

[Ashley]

BookNook — Young Adult book reviews

2.5 Stars

Mind Games was an okay book, but I was hoping it would be a lot better. The book isn't nearly as intense or action-packed as I thought it would be.

I think the problem with this book is that Fia is actually crazy. I went from liking her, to disliking her, to understanding her, to still disliking her—but maybe a little bit less. She just always sounded so.. jittery when she talked. And she has this really annoying habit of repeating a word or phrase three times. It drove me completely nuts.

"Okay," I say, closing my eyelids because they are heavy, heavy, heavy.

I can't tap, tap, tap my fingers because...

I know how to twist it just so to pop-pop-pop it right out of the socket.

Sometimes I sleep here. Sleep, sleep. I'll sleep now.

But then we slowly begin to realize why she is this way. She's actually a bit crazy. She's just so broken, tortured, and traumatized by the things that the 'school' makes her do: murder, kidnap (almost), and steal. She had already committed her first murder before she was fifteen. The trauma has slowly broken her down until she is more an empty shell than a person. It still made her an annoying character, but at least I understood why.

Mind Games was also lacking in the world building. We know that people with exceptional powers are being kidnapped or lured to this school to be trained. We know that the really good ones are kept to be used for corporate espionage, but that's all we ever find out. We have no idea what they're actually doing, or what the results of their actions are. We don't know what kind of benefits the mysterious 'leader' is getting or what purpose the tasks/murders/thefts serve.

In some ways, the execution of this book almost made it feel like a really long prologue. The book alternates between present day and the past (slowly building up to present time). The flashbacks are meant to help explain why Fia is so broken and tortured. But ultimately, that was the entire book. The whole book wasn't really about uncovering corporate espionage or putting a stop to it, it was just about figuring out why Fia is such an angry, soulless girl. It wasn't horribly boring for me to read about, but by the time the book ended, I felt like the story was only just getting started.

Overall, Mind Games is missing a strong, exciting, central plot. There's too much telling of history and what happened weeks/months/years in the past, and not enough progression in present time. Maybe the books later in the series will be more interesting. As I said, when it ended, I felt like things were just getting started. Hopefully that means the later books will have less background story and more heart-pumping excitement and confrontations.