Through the Dark (A Darkest Minds Collection) (Darkest Minds Novel, A)

Through the Dark is a compilation of three novellas, written by the author as companions to the Darkest Minds trilogy. In Time is the story of a skip tracer, showing what life is like for those in the periphery of the main story. Sparks Rise tells about life in Thurmond after Ruby is no longer in attendance. Finally, Beyond the Night is the story of life after the original trilogy ends.

My favorite aspect of Through the Dark is the fact that Sam is so prominent in two of the novellas. I always thought that her story should be told and Through the Dark is the perfect vehicle to make this happen. Lucas and Mia feature strongly, due to the fact that they were close to Sam in the "before". Beyond the Night allows readers to have a little bit of closure to the series, which was largely missing from the third book in the trilogy. As a perfect book to fill in the blanks, I would not recommend reading this before the novels. Through the Dark gives readers a good glance back and is comprehensive enough that it all makes sense.

Overall rating: 5 super full stars.

This novella are a gem of a story, they tie-in with the trilogy in ways I wasn’t expecting and left me totally amazed. They add even more depth and layers to the TMI trilogy and just make it even better—pretty amazing, uh?
“Beyond the night” is not just awesome; it also ties-up some loose threads that were left hanging at the end of ITA---oh yes, finally!

In Time: 4.5 stars. A very insightful story, stab-in-the-heart fashion. We finally get to know Gabe and appreciate him. Yes, I did have a fangirl moment at the mention of Liam.

Spark rise: 5 painful and heartbroken stars. I’m running out of tears. No words will do honour to the beauty of this story and to Sam & Lucas.

Beyond the Night: 5.5 stars. This story totally blew me away. It finally ties up some loose threads from ITA. I loved the newish characters, especially Lucas & Sam. What about the old gang? I had not realized how much I loved them until they reappeared in this story. Vida is her usual kickass self (go, girl!), Chubs is still Chubs and Liam...I didn’t think possible I could love him even more but I WAS SO WRONG. What about Ruby? I like this Ruby at peace with herself a lot, like a lot (who would have guessed...) and I adored every second of when she went total Orange- badassness!! (*I’m cheering from the side lines*). Overall, I loved and loved and loved this coming together of the new trio and the old gang----it was, God---I don’t have the words---too many feels! Go and read it! Once you do, I’m sure you’ll understand.

Alexandra Bracken's books are all amazing. I loved the Darkest Minds series and I predict that I'll also love this collection of novellas.

“Monsters save themselves.”

4.5 STARS

CW: suicide, car crash, graphic injury, animal death, violence (including gun violence), concentration camps, sexual assault, loss of a loved one, human trafficking

After spending almost 1.5k pages in Ruby Daly’s head, it is nice to get out and breathe somewhere else in this world. The three novellas in Through the Dark (In Time, Sparks Rise, and Beyond the Night) focus on Gabe, Sam, and Mia respectively, though the second two are far more intertwined with each other.

In Time fills in some of the blanks of Zu’s story by way of Gabe, the wanna-be skip tracer who has a change of heart when he realizes the truth of the matter. I find it hard to like Gabe, but appreciate that he actually did do the right thing in the end, not to mention I liked seeing Zu able to survive even without the Black Betty crew to protect her. It’s comforting to know she’s strong even if she doesn’t have them immediately at hand to back her up. Plus, Zu is so sharp and opinionated and brilliant, and I love her to pieces.

Sparks Rise takes us back to Thurmond, back to Sam, the girl whose memory Ruby accidentally erased. It’s not necessarily a comfort to know that the time Ruby spent free from Thurmond was still time where Thurmond was getting worse, but coming back to familiar faces and seeing that those faces have lives and connections and traumas that have changed them beyond what Ruby actually knows of is good storytelling.

Finally, Beyond the Night wraps up Sam and Lucas’s story, pulling in Mia, Lucas’s little sister, and seeing them all through to an ending of their own. The Black Betty crew makes an appearance, but it’s mainly a story about how the world is and isn’t changing now that the camps have been exposed. It shows that the situation isn’t perfectly resolved, that some changes still have to be fought for, and that there are still people in the system. Things may look good on paper, but there’s work to be done to do right by the kids who’ve suffered.

Arrived in good shape without a tear or bend in cover - yay!

My daughter loves this series.

Love the book

It was really great to get back into the world of The Darkest Minds, I really missed the characters when I finished the series so it was fun to get to see them again. This book consists of three novellas taking place between each book and then after the third book. One of the stories is about Zu and the other two are about Sam, who is Ruby’s best friend at Thurmond. It was great to get to know more about the world after the series ended, as well as see what happened at Thurmond after Ruby left. I would recommend this book to any fan of The Darkest Minds and I really enjoyed reading them after reading the whole series because I could read them back to back and find out how Sam’s story ended.

awesome!

When you find a series that you enjoy often times you wonder what the world you can't see is like. How some of the characters who were not main character live or came to be apart of the storyline. These short novella answers those questions for me and tied the story line together beautifully. I remember reading it thinking why can't all novellas (which sometimes leave you still wondering why...) be this complete. I really enjoy this book and if you are a fan of the series you won't be disappointed.