Ruby can't look back. Fractured by an unbearable loss, she and the kids who survived the government's attack on Los Angeles travel north to regroup. With them is a prisoner: Clancy Gray, son of the president, and one of the few people Ruby has encountered with abilities like hers. Only Ruby has any power over him, and just one slip could lead to Clancy wreaking havoc on their minds.

They are armed only with a volatile secret: proof of a government conspiracy to cover up the real cause of IAAN, the disease that has killed most of America's children and left Ruby and others like her with powers the government will kill to keep contained. But internal strife may destroy their only chance to free the "rehabilitation camps" housing thousands of other Psi kids.
Meanwhile, reunited with Liam, the boy she would-and did-sacrifice everything for to keep alive, Ruby must face the painful repercussions of having tampered with his memories of her. She turns to Cole, his older brother, to provide the intense training she knows she will need to take down Gray and the government. But Cole has demons of his own, and one fatal mistake may be the spark that sets the world on fire.

The third and final book of The Darkest Minds trilogy starts with what’s left of the Children’s League hiding in the ruins of LA, trying to get through government ranks to the safe house called Ranch. Their numbers have dangerously decreased, leaving once powerful organization scattered and weak and many agents are willing to do anything – even turn in the kids who they swore to protect. After discovering their plans, Ruby is forced to work with Cole and keep many secrets in order to lead everyone to safety and proceed with finding the cure for IAAN.

Well, three books in The Darkest Minds and I can say I really enjoyed this story and world Bracken created. I liked the second book a lot more than I did the first, so, naturally, I genuinely expected to really get into the third one. It was a good book for closing up the trilogy, but there were a few things I couldn’t get over no matter how much I came to love the characters. When I thought about it a bit, I realized my opinion for In the Afterlight was more or less the same as for The Darkest Minds (I was even going to give them the same rate), and mostly for the same reasons.

First of all, this book has disastrous pacing. The plot was really well thought through and it has all elements, revelations and closures I needed for the last book in the trilogy to have, but the timing was just wrong. Some parts of the story were really dynamic and hard to follow, but over too quickly for me to grasp all the factors that lead to something, so I often found myself just skipping some important notions and hoping to figure them later.

On the other hand, some parts of the plot were unnecessarily long and tiresome, like the entire period of their residence on Ranch was mostly actionless, with nothing more than making plans and enjoying personal drama. Specifically, Liam and Ruby’s hassling around for half of the book murdered half of my remaining brain cells. What this book missed at its core were more actions, battles, and operations. I really liked further progress of the plot, but still, I expected something more than two or three smaller operations and one bigger at the very end.

I really really fucking loved every single thing about characters in this book. I swear, even Ruby became less annoying after finishing her parade with Liam. I loved all friendships, romances and their individual storylines soo much and I never imagined I’d come to love all of them. I even liked Clancy, no wait, I LOVED Clancy. I don’t know about anyone else, but evil little mastermind who wants to destroy everyone makes it to the top next to Cole.

I can’t explain how devastated I was after *spoiler for Never Fade* Jude’s death because he was so cute, but Cole’s death destroyed me. Friendship he and Ruby had was so powerful and deep and damn that was a bromance we all needed. Tbh at this moment, I would have been more okay with anyone else dying except these two, but their deaths really brought a sort of a tragic and realistic note to the trilogy’s ending, doesn’t matter the pain.

When it’s all said, there’s nothing left but the ending itself. When it comes to endings of dystopian series, it usually takes shape of recovery and change, but In the Afterlight had undergone that transition a little too quickly, don’t you think? *minor spoilers for the ending* The fall of Thurmond was a nice closure and a way to finish a story (although I would have liked it to be more intense and dramatic but ok), but after that, there were two congresses and everything was cool. I don’t know but after ten years of abuse and neglect towards the Psi children, I don’t understand how could so many people cross to their side and overcome the government in a matter of days. I know there are a lot of problems left unfinished and all, but that political part of the ending was a bit unrealistic.




All in all, my journey with this trilogy is coming to an end. I’ll try to squeeze a few Bracken’s novellas in my February reads and I’m reading The Darkest Legacy by the end of the month, but now it’s time to see Ruby’s story on screen xd