Forbidden Mind
(The Forbidden Minds Trilogy, book 1)
Kimberly Kinrade
CreateSpace
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
***
DESCRIPTION: 17-year-old Sam never had a normal life, but then she's never been a normal girl. Like all the kids at her secluded school, known by the students as
"Rent-a-Kid," she has paranormal abilities - in her case, telepathy. Clients pay big money to borrow teens like her for special projects, but it's not like she isn't being
paid for her services. Over the years, she's built up quite a bank account. Now on the edge of 18, she's been assured acceptance into a New York college, where she'll go
on to build a normal life among normal people with her earnings. That's what happens to everyone at Rent-A-Kid when they graduate. Or so Sam always thought...
She first saw the strange boy at the campus health clinic, strapped to a gurney with a bloody head wound. He cried out to her for help with his eye and his mind. Nobody
wants to talk about him, and this close to graduation Sam doesn't want to rock any boats, but she can't get him out of her mind... literally. Because of him, she starts to
question everything she knows about her life, her talent... and what's really going to happen when she turns 18.
REVIEW: This grabbed me with a fast start, quickly sketching in Sam's life and her world, and establishing the vaguely questionable staff of "Rent-A-Kid." When she learns that she's been involuntarily enrolled in a breeding program, the tale threatens to wobble, but instead of degenerating into pro-life simpering Sam uses it as fuel to stoke her own determination to free herself, her mystery man, and her friends. Unfortunately, it unravels at the end, as the previously strong heroine collapses into a useless, weeping wreck. I'd hoped for a little more paranoia, more of a sense that even among her friends there might be spies and traitors willing to sell her out for her growing doubts, but the friend-versus-foe count breaks down pretty much as it appears, even without telepathy. While I've definitely read worse, it failed to engage my interest sufficiently for me to follow the rest of the trilogy.
You might also enjoy:
Something Wicked This Way Comes (Ray Bradbury, YA Fiction - Two Midwestern boys discover sinister secrets behind a traveling carnival)
Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow (Orson Scott Card, YA? Fiction - Aboard an orbital station, young prodigies train for an interstellar war)
Things Not Seen (Andrew Clements, YA Fiction - A boy wakes up one morning and discovers he's become invisible)
The Chamber of Horrors series (Bruce Coville, YA Fiction - Four tales of teens in supernaturally strange situations)
The Missing series (Margaret Peterson Haddix, YA Fiction - An adopted boy discovers something very unusual about his origins)
Magic or Madness (Justine Larabalestier, YA Fiction - Her mother's mental breakdown leads a teen girl to discover a dark family curse)
The Watchers series (Peter Lerangis, YA Fiction - Six stories of ordinary kids who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances)
Roswell High 1: The Outsiders(Melinda Metz, YA Fiction - Four teenagers at Roswell High School hide extraordinary abilities and origins)
Witch & Wizard (James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet, YA Fiction - Two teens are imprisoned by a totalitarian regime for magical powers they don't know they have)
The 2099 series (John Peel, YA Fiction - An accident reveals that a boy is not who he thought he was... and that his real ID is linked to a doomsday plot)
The Diadem series (John Peel, YA Fiction - Three kids from different worlds are bound by a common quest and unknown destiny)
The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman, YA? Fiction - A girl stumbles onto a church-led conspiracy involving evidence of other worlds)
The Harry Potter series (J. K. Rowling, YA Fiction - An orphaned boy attends a wizarding school, where he learns the truth about his parents' deaths)
A School for Sorcery (E. Rose Sabin, YA Fiction - A girl learns to explore her magical talents at a special boarding school)
Others See Us (William Sleator, YA Fiction - A spill in a toxic swamp gives a teen boy telepathic abilities)
A College of Magics (Caroline Stevermer, YA Fiction - An heiress attends a magical academy, where she clashes with a personal and political rival)
The 100 Cupboards trilogy (N. D. Wilson, YA Fiction - Staying with relatives in Kansas, a boy discovers strange worlds through the little cabinet doors in his attic bedroom wall)
Return to Top of Page - Return to Book Review List
Return to Brightdreamer Books Home
Brightdreamer Books is created and maintained by TBW, a.k.a. "Brightdreamer."
E-mail: tbweber AT comcast DOT net. (Remove spaces, replace AT with "@" and DOT with "." - please put "Brightdreamer Books" in the subject line, or your e-mail may be deleted as
spam! Thank you!