The Darkest Minds

The Darkest Minds is a young adult dystopian novel by the American writer Alexandra Bracken, published in 2012 by Hyperion Books for Children. It is the first book of a series that eventually ran to four novels and several novellas.

A disease killed most of the country's children and left the survivors with abilities the government keeps under control in camps. Ruby Daly has spent years hiding the extent of her own ability, and when she escapes she falls in with a group of runaways trying to cross the country without being caught by the agency that used to hold them. The group includes children with different abilities and different reasons for running, the book is careful about what each of them is willing to do, and its real subject is what the children become responsible for once the adults are gone.

Bracken writes the series as a road novel as much as a dystopia, and the group at the centre of it carries the story rather than the politics alone. It was followed by further volumes.