Never Fade, Alexandra Bracken

I HAVE WAITED SO LONG FOR THIS.

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her her life. Now she must call upon them on a daily basis, leading dangerous missions to bring down a corrupt government and breaking into the minds of her enemies. Other kids in the Children’s League call Ruby “Leader”, but she knows what she really is: a monster. (Full description found here.)

So this has been a wild October. First there was Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein. Then there's this. Then THIS TUESDAY, the 22nd, Allegiant by Veronica Roth comes out and then on . . . I think the 29th? Horde by Ann Aguirre comes out. And then on November-something, Champion by Marie Lu comes out. I've been waiting so long for all of these books to finally come out. It's been forever!

Any-hoo. This book was . . . oh my God. It was everything a sequel could ever dream to be. It's just magnificent. Splendid. Amazing.

I don't have enough adjectives to describe Never Fade. Some people say it's even better than The Darkest Minds (the first book--if you haven't read it, you need to). I say this: The Darkest Minds was better than the best. Never Fade just continues that. I wouldn't say it's better or worse, their both equally unbelievably perfect in different ways.

I just read over my review for Darkest Minds, my emotions are still the same.

"I think I might cry.
Okay I'm going to cry."

Yeah, still the same.

Usually, when I suspect that a series will be really, really good, I pick a theme song. It's usually piano music or just classical, without words, so I can focus on the story. For this series, I picked the 1812 Overture. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES I HAVE HEARD THAT OUTSIDE OF PLAYING IT ON REPEAT WHILE I READ? Every time I hear it, I have to fight back the urge to cry. I'm dead serious. It's unhealthy. One time another band played it at one of our band concerts and I had to sit there and think about The Darkest Minds and just . . . sit. It made me so sad. Oh my God, Alexandra Bracken--what have you done to me?

So yeah, that's my Darkest Minds theme-song and I started it on repeat again as I began to read Never Fade, after being deprived of the characters for a long time. Like, since In Time (a short e-book that came between TDM and NF) came out. Or, actually I don't know when In Time came out, but I read it over the summer. So it'd been awhile since I had read about this setting or these characters. I was already crying by page eight. I missed these guys!

I have a lot to say about this series. I'm sorry in advance!

Let's get down to business though.

The main character is still Ruby Daly, except she's much older than she was at the beginning of The Darkest Minds. But, let's be real, she was way older at the end of TDM than she was at the beginning. So really no change there. I still want to grab Ruby by the shoulders and shake some sense into her! Oh my GOD, this girl makes the dumbest decisions! If I were in her shoes, I'd probably make the same decisions--actually, scratch that, I'd make about 50% of the same decisions. Maybe 75%. Either way, she makes decisions that fit with what she knows and not with what I'm guessing will happen after she makes that decision. Basically I spend the whole time saying, "SEE RUBY? SEE? I told you that would happen." But that's normal for me. I talk to fictional characters all the time. Who doesn't?

Liam. Oh god. Lee. Stewart. If I start typing I will start screaming again so here's just what I put down for my review of TDM...

"I love him. He's just so chill. No like, cool-chill, just chill. He's also got a deep reservoir of cool-kid lingo and nicknames. I don't know if he's my favorite character, just because the other ones are so awesome too."

Yeah, I still don't know if he's my favorite character. There are so many. Plus there are new characters in Never Fade, compared to the ones in The Darkest Minds.

Personally, I think authors bring in new characters that aren't exactly main characters, just so they can kill them off. It's a terrible, horrible thing to do. But I'd rather have someone not-so-important die instead of someone I love so much already. I'm talking fictional characters. Of course. It's still sad either way, but I don't think I could even try to recover if Ruby or Lee or Chubs or Zu ever died. That would be the start of my downfall.

Seriously though, that's the worst thing I can think of. Oh, I hope that never happens. Just thinking about it makes my heart hurt. Oh my gosh.

Chubs, I should explain. He's very close to my favorite, if I had to pick one. He's just so perky all the time. Not. It's great. At first he totally rejects everyone but I think that's just because of some stuff in the past. He only truly trusts Lee and Zu, but he's grown to love Ruby just the same. Aw. Adorable, heart-warming.

I swear to goodness, though, if he ends up with one of the new characters from Never Fade, I will die. My main concern? Vida. I won't go into detail, but she's the new hot-chick in this series. She's always picking fights and stuff, kind of like Chubs, I guess. They snap at each other all the time. I just really don't want Chubs to end up with Vida. Like I said, I will die if they do. Chubs just isn't boyfriend material. I guess . . . I could see him being really awesome with a girlfriend, but they can't add another to the Fab Four. And she'll probably die anyways and we can't put Chubs through that.

That's just a prediction by the way, I haven't actually read anything about the third book. Though, I am making a prediction about the third book's title. I think it will either be "Into Black", "To Black", or just "Away". Since the books' titles make a sentence, the sentences would be:

• The darkest minds, in time, never fade into black/shadows/history (that last one's getting a little philosophical, oh well).
• The darkest minds, in time, never fade into the black/shadows.
• The darkest minds, in time, never fade to black/shadows.
• The darkest minds, in time, never fade away.
• The darkest minds, in time, never fade into (something like darkness, though I can't think of a good word).

I'm also open to different forms of "into", like "to", or something like that. Those are all considered in my guess. 

I'll admit, the last one sounds the most natural. But based on the fact that the original title for The Darkest Minds was supposed to be "Black is the Color," I figured that might factor in. I really hope I'm right. I have many witnesses to say I've predicted this right after finishing Never Fade. Not that the third title has anything to do with the storyline of the second book--I mean, "Never Fade" doesn't even have much to do with Never Fade's storyline.

I can keep guessing for hours.