
Young adult
Mind Games
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Dystopian and reckless in all the right ways when a side job of selling memories for profit goes wrong.
Romance
Fast read
Action-packed
Puzzle
Arden sells memories. Whether it’s the becoming homecoming queen or studying for that all important test, Arden can hack into a classmate’s memories and upload the experience for you just as if you’d lived it yourself. Business is great, right up until the day Arden whites out, losing 15 minutes of her life and all her memories of the hot boy across the school yard. The hot boy her friends assure her she’s had a crush on for years.
Arden realizes that her own memories have been hacked, but they haven’t just been stolen and shared… they’ve been deleted. And she’s not the only one, the hot stranger, Sebastian, has lost ALL of his memories. But how can they find someone with the power to make them forget everything they’ve learned?
The problem with stealing other people’s memories is that you start to lose the difference between what’s theirs and what’s yours. Luckily, I know how to exploit that—as long as the teachers don’t find out, anyway. Normal after-school jobs are overrated if you have a secret in-school business. When your last name is emblazoned on the school crest—and the school letterhead—the other students will let you get away with anything. Like stealing their memories.
On my laptop, I open up my memory-uploading app. A line of students snakes away from me, each one wanting to buy a different experience. And I have loads of experiences to choose from, indexed within the app. I bypass the cool graphic interface normal users of HiveMind see and run the hacking program I wrote back when my dad was first developing the software. It uses a variety of complex algorithms to gain backdoor access to all the files stored in the HiveMind cloud, not just my own.
Usually, my partner in crime, Zoey Flint, doles out numbers as though the students are waiting in line at the deli, except she texted me that she’s running late today, so I’m doing it myself. Once they receive a number, they disperse across the courtyard and mill about like strangers trying to act normal before they break out in a flash mob.
If you could look inside another person’s mind and know what they’re thinking, would you? If you could glimpse the thoughts of a genius, or discover whether your crush likes you back, would it be worth the risk of, say, learning what that person really thinks of you?
For Arden, that answer is yes. Not only does she hack into the minds of her peers, but she sells the memories she finds for some extra $$. But Arden has standards. Stealing test answers from the teacher’s pet? Fine. Spying on your girlfriend’s thoughts to find out if she’s cheating on you? Not allowed. But when Arden learns that her own mind has been hacked—and her memories of a boy named Sebastian erased—her fun side hustle goes from profitable to sinister. Especially since Sebastian’s entire memory bank has been wiped.
I had so much fun watching tech-savvy Arden and vulnerable Sebastian work to uncover what happened to their memories. Part fast-paced sci-fi thriller, part budding romance, Mind Games plays out what our world might look like if we could actually read each other’s minds. If you’ve ever said something along the lines of “I wish I knew what you were thinking,” spoiler alert: It’s not all sunshine and rainbows.
Mersaides G.
Cass City , MI
I loved this book so much!! It keeps you guessing as it leads you though Arden and Sebastian's struggle to answer the burning question, “who stole all our memories?” While they also uncover their love
Eleni S.
ALBUQUERQUE, NM
Fast + fun read! Loved following Arden as she discovered why she has missing memories and that Sebastian had none. Fascinating concepts/plot w/ fancy but realistic biotech + sharing/storing memories.
Liz S.
Denton, TX
Holy cow this was one of the best books Ive read to date. It was all i could do to consume it as fast as i could. I know very little about technology and computer coding but it didnt matter. LOVE THIS
Jamie W.
Canton, MI
Love this book! The plot was very interesting and so fast paced that I didn’t want to put it down. I liked the way the author made it into a thriller/romance. Can’t wait to see more from her!
Megan C.
Newberry, FL
Such an amazing book. Was on the edge of my seat and couldnt actually guess what was happening like most books. Amazing character arcs and such an interesting plot. Favorite book of 2020 so far.