Mind Games Review

TITLE Mind Games (Mind Games #1)
AUTHOR Kiersten White
PUBLICATION February 19th 2013 by HarperTeen
READ February 7, 2013
SOURCE HarperCollins via Edelweiss for review

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.

Being the Cover Whore that I am, I was dying to get my hands on Mind Games from the moment that I saw its stunning cover. I actually read the blurb for this one and it got me even more excited. Two sisters with extraordinary powers trapped in a school that wants to use their powers to carry out their evil deeds. How epic does that sound? This story had a stunning cover and a great premise going for it but unfortunately it failed to deliver...until the very last chapter.

Fia and Annie are sisters who at an early age began showing signs of having capabilities that other humans didn’t have. Fia can always feel what is right or wrong with her flawless instincts and Annie had a vision of their parents dying in a terrible car crash which came true later that night. The world that was created in which there is a school that houses all of these people with powers should have been so fascinating but instead fell flat. All we got were teachers who were so twisted that it was hard to believe that Annie could have been falling for their crap all along and thinking she was in this place that was good for her future. And instead of great friendships and a great sisterhood it was just full of people who didn’t really like each other and were constantly at each others throats.

There was not one student in the school that I liked, but we really don’t get to see any other than Annie, Fia and their friend Eden. I didn’t like Eden, and I can’t even really back that up with a strong reason why, we never got to know her in any way other than a few scenes where she was snarky towards Fia. Annie was pretty frustrating because she spent most of her time moping about all the things Fia had to go through to keep her safe. I felt like, as the older sister, she should have had some more wits about her but she really felt like she was so oblivious to absolutely everything. She knew that her sister was being trained and used as a weapon for murder but still she was selfish and wanted to reap the benefits she was receiving at the school. Fia was pretty snarky and in the beginning I was sure that I was going to like her but even she fell flat for me. She was always repeating things three times and tapping her fingers three times & I just never got a feel for what purpose this served in the plot other than annoying me.

Along with the repetitiveness of the story I was also bothered by the pacing. When I read the first chapter I was prepared for a story made of awesome because it was great! There was action and intensity & Fia looked promising with her sass and kicking ass capabilities. But I kept reading and I was extremely bored. There are all of these flashbacks that aren’t really cohesive; one will go back 7 years, then the next 2, then the next 5 and it ended up feeling all over the place to the point that I wasn’t sure if I was reading something that was happening in the now, or just how far back in the past it occurred. So in the middle I wanted to sleep and then the last chapter was like BAM awesome again. So it was like a sandwich with this really amazing bread filled with something you would never ever want to eat. Yeah, it was just like that.

Mind Games was my first White novel and there’s a pretty good chance it will be my last. The twist at the end was enough for my to bump my star rating up one but I don’t think it was enough to make me actually pick up the sequel. Such a shame too with such a pretty cover...