Review: Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn

Title: Open Minds
Author: Susan Kaye Quinn
Format: Ebook
Publisher: Self-published
Publish Date: November 1, 2011
Source: I received a copy from the author; however, this did not affect my review.

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You're a young adult fiction fan.
• You're a dystopian fan.

What's the Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mindreader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden world of mindjackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her."

My Two Cents: 

I keep thinking that I'm going to get tired of dystopian books but when I read a book like Open Minds, I know that as long as I keep reading good books, there's no way that I'm going to get tired of this genre. Open Minds is a wildly inventive story where almost everyone can read minds and those who can't are outcasts. Kira is one of the ones who can't read minds but she may have something that sets her apart even more.

World building is something that I look forward to in dystopian books. For me, the world building in Open Minds was one of the best parts of the book. Quinn does a great job of making you feel what it must be like to live in a world where if you're different like Kira finds out she is, you're going to be under government scrutiny. It's a scary new world but one that you could sort of see happening - if the entire country became mind readers. It's a chilling place. The part where some of the characters are in the government camps were especially creepy. You really begin to feel bad for the characters that are there.

The best character in the book is definitely Kira. She's a well-rounded character. I loved that we got to see the story from her point of view. Many of the other characters are not as full as her. They almost seem like vehicles for the action in a lot of places. You don't get a full sense of who they are or what their motivation is. It would have been nice to know a little bit more about them.

This book is part of a trilogy but I think that you could just read this book and have a fairly good standalone book, which I appreciated. As much as I like dystopian books, I'm not liking the trend of having so few standalone books.

Bottom line: A great inventive story for the dystopian lover!