Mindscape by M.M. Vaughan

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Title: Mindscape (The Ability, #2)

Author: M.M. Vaughan

Published By: Margaret K. McElderry Books (2014)

Synopsis: Everywhere that Christopher Lane turns, he sees the face of the boy he killed. There is no escape from the guilt, not even on his return to Myers Holt—the secret London academy where he and five others are being trained to use their mental powers, their Ability.

But now that the threat of Dulcia Genever has been dealt with, his friends are too busy working for the police, entering the minds of some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, to sympathize. Chris’s teachers are already concerned enough about him, especially when Chris starts to wonder if the boy may not be a figment of his imagination after all.

Meanwhile, alone in Darkwhisper Manor, Ernest Genever is enjoying watching Chris’s torment. Yes, he will keep his promise—Christopher Lane will die—but not until he has watched Chris lose his mind waiting for Ernest to appear. For, if nothing else, Dulcia Genever did teach her son one valuable lesson: Revenge is a dish best served cold. (Taken from Goodreads.)

Review:

This book was very bewildering.

While the storyline as a whole was well developed, action-paced, and complete with fun characters, the ending completely threw off everything. Despite the fact I loved the first book and yes, this book definitely lived up to my expectations coming off of The Ability, I did not like this one as much as the first.

A sequel to The Ability, Mindscape follows Chris and all his friends as they journey through the last few months they have their Ability, helping the police solve crimes and learning to control their powers even further. The issue? Chris is being haunted by Ernest, the brother of the boy he accidentally killed. Chris can’t get over himself for such a fatal mistake, but what’s even worse is that Ernest can’t get over it, either. In fact, he’s made a vow: Christopher Lane will die.

The storyline approaching the ending was all well and fine, and I would have probably liked it well enough had I actually found the ending decent. I find myself judging books by their endings, and though this one wasn’t the worst I have seen, it wasn’t exactly amazing. What I found most upsetting was this book had so much potential to have an incredible ending; instead, the ending was cheesy, predictable, and let’s just say, CLIFFHANGER! It seemed to me like the author was trying to end the book on a slightly mysterious note: with a little bit unknown to keep the reader guessing, but yet with still enough satisfaction to feel good coming out of the read. Well, to me, that wasn’t what it was. Too much mystery, too much suspense, too many unanswered questions, all appearing at the last chapter; not to mention the actual ending was so abrupt, I turned the page expecting another sentence and there was none. It seemed to literally end right in the middle of a paragraph.

Not to say anything directly in the ending was bad, and most people, I think, will find it satisfying, action-ridden, and suspenseful, but, unfortunately for me, I’m not one of those people. Instead, I’m one of those unusual teenage girls who actually bases her opinion on books regarding the quality of the writing, and in that case, I mostly found it very disappointing.

Besides the ending, though, I enjoyed this book for the most part. Chris’s character is so well done; probably the best done character in the books. Well, he’s the main character, of course he has to be well done—but to be honest, he was the only character I could actually relate to. There were a lot of characters in the series, and while there wasn’t too many (I easily kept track of them all), I did feel like most of them were characters simply thrown in there for the fun of it. I couldn’t truly connect to anyone outside of Chris, even though we did see a bit further development on Daisy. The issue, I guess, is that while the characters are written in a way as secondary characters are, they’re plotted in as main characters, and that makes them hard to relate to.

Negative Content:

None.

Overall:

As a whole, though, and excepting the ending, this was a good read, even though I wish the ending would have gone differently. I need to know what happens next! Write a third book, M.M. Vaughan!

Rating: 3.5

Recommended to: ages 10+

 

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