Me on Mind Games

Title: Mind Games
Author: Kiersten White
Release Date: February 19, 2013
Publisher: HarperTeen

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 mid 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 sick, twisted ways, or risking each other's lives by refusing to obey.

Mind Games is an intriguing thriller, fast-paced and filled with suspicions. Shifting back and forth between Fia and Annie, back and forth between their present and their past, this is a story about two sisters and how they became trapped by their abilities, trapped by a group that would use them for their own gain, trapped by their own attempts to keep the other safe.

The voices of the sisters are very different, showcasing that they are two very different people. Annie is collected but complicated, blind but all-seeing. She worries so much for Fia. Fia, however, is far less contained and practical. Her voice is very stream of consciousness, she's very expressive, very vocal. Her heightened instincts give her the sense that she's on the border between sanity and insanity, she makes snap decisions that to her seem logical and correct but to others appear random. Together, they're a complicated and broken pair of sisters.

The connection between them is both tenuous and the strongest bond possible. They need each other to survive, but are held captive in their separate situations because of the other. It's a terrible situation, having a person in your life you need and care for desperately but that same person is wearing you down until you need them to stay away.

This book is far darker, far more complicated, and far more dangerous than I ever anticipated. It borders on being completely opposite from the author's previous series, where danger and death are constantly close, where one girl can see the future and another appears completely insane. The non-linear plot took some getting used to, and I imagine there will be some who don't like Fia's character, but I found it interesting enough.

(I acquired an advance copy at ALA Midwinter.)