The Worst Thing About My Book Is

My book is The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. I like the idea behind it. However, I don't like the way the author writes. I feel like the book moved really fast. The author seemed to be trying to cram a lot of information into the minimum amount of pages.

For example, they tried to put four years of what could have been a good story on it's own and put it into three chapters.And this information was important to the character development and her background and why what happened, actually happened. I still didn't really understand what the colors were she kept talking about or why some of the kids are being kept in a camp. However right after those three chapters, in chapter four, the main character is planning to break out of the camp. About half way the chapter the main character gets a note that has this in it, "New CC was testing for undetected Ys(Yellows), Os(Oranges), Rs(Reds). Your bad reaction means that they know you aren't G(Green). Unless you do exactly as I say, they will kill you tomorrow... I can get you out." (Bracken 46) The reaction they are talking about is what is called 'White Noise' and that's not really explained either throughout the book. All it says is it only affects the kids with these powers who are immune to a disease that killed all other children. This disease is explained to the audience by saying things like, "they just died" and never really even talking about the fact that only kids died, no adults. Why now are kids getting these powers? Or do some adults have them?

I also didn't fully understand why she was breaking out of this camp in the first place. Later in the book it talks about how horrible the camp the main character went to was worse than all the others but it never explains why because from what the reader gets from all the characters, all camps sound the same and the character nevers says anything about what happened at her camp that was so terrible. And even though I finished the book I still don't understand what each of these colors really means and how they came to be called that. Or anything at all about this plot really.

Another thing I feel like the author didn't explain was the symbol on the front of the book. After reading I can tell why it's orange and the barbed fence around it. However, I don't have any idea how the symbol is applicable to the book.

Since this is the first book in a trilogy I think that the next two books will explain everything more in depth: what the colors are and the sickness that kills only children. I find that I don't really want to read the next two books though since the only reason I read this one was to see if it ever made since, not because I enjoyed the book. I don't want to continue reading books out of confusion and mild inquisitiveness but because I think they are good books. So I plan to put this series down and pick up a book that is hopefully much better than this one.

The Wastelands:Describe How Different Characters Deal With the Main Conflict

One part of a good book is having characters with very different and dynamic personalities so that all the characters don't do the same thing always helping make the book more interesting. I believe Stephen King does a good job of making all of his main characters unique. The three main characters of The Wastelands are Roland, Susannah, and Eddie. They all have different ways of dealing with conflict

The conflict in the book begins with one of the members of the group, Eddie, being chased up a tree by a cyborg bear. The bear is described as, "... a shaggy tower with reddish-brown eyes. Those eyes glowed with fever and madness. His huge head now wearing a  garland of broken branches and fir needles, swung ceaselessly from side to side."(King 20-21)

A depiction of the bear

The leader and teacher of the group is Roland. He deals with the conflict by taking charge. He tries to save Eddie's life by telling Susannah how to kill it and charging her with saving him, leaving no room for argument on anything else. He doesn't just do this because he feels like he can't though, he also does it as a test of Susannah's newly learned skills. When told later by his companions that this may not have been the safest option since he was much better with fighting he acknowledges this but tells them that he still believed it best overall. This shows his one-minded and uncompromising way of thinking and is ideas that real action will truly show how well someone learned, even if during that real action someone could get hurt.

Susannah deals with the conflict by looking to the most experienced with fighting of the group, Roland, to see what to do. When he tells her she must kill it to save Eddie, she argues at first that she may miss her target and have the bear turn and kill both of them before killing Eddie and that Roland would be much more suited to the task. When Roland pushes her though, she remembers her lessons and manages to hit her target, saving Eddie. This helps revisit the idea of self-doubt she has from earlier chapters while also showing her want for the least risky option when someone's life is at risk but her willingness and resolution to do whats needed.

Eddie had the hardest time in this conflict as he was the one being chased by the bear. When he realizes that it is coming Eddie deals with it by thinking quickly through all his options and their consequences. When he realizes that his first courses of action will get him killed he tries to think a bit more outside the box and realizes he could try to climb a tree until, hopefully, Roland and Susannah came back and saved him. This shows his resourcefulness and the conviction he has in his group.