Review: Minders

MINDERS
Michele Jaffe
Young Adult/Dystopian
400 pages
Razorbill
Available January 30th
Source: ARC from publisher for review

THE STORY (from Goodreads)
Q: If the boy you love commits a crime, would you turn him in?

Sadie Ames is a type-A teenager from the wealthy suburbs. She's been accepted to the prestigious Mind Corps Fellowship program, where she'll spend six weeks as an observer inside the head of Ford, a troubled boy with a passion for the crumbling architecture of the inner city. There's just one problem: Sadie's fallen in love with him.

Q: What if the crime is murder?

Ford Winters is haunted by the murder of his older brother, James. As Sadie falls deeper into his world, dazzled by the shimmering pinpricks of color that form images in his mind, she begins to think she knows him. Then Ford does something unthinkable.

Q: What if you saw it happen from inside his mind?

Back in her own body, Sadie is faced with the ultimate dilemma. With Ford's life in her hands, she must decide what is right and what is wrong. And how well she can really ever know someone, even someone she loves.

MY THOUGHTS
Minders is a nebulous story, clarity coalescing and dissolving from one chapter to the next, dancing fluidly through the grasp of our fingers as we observe Sadie’s observation of Ford. We come to realize, however, that much of the beauty of it lies in the hazy area between full understanding and incomprehension, allowing our minds to fill in the pockets of space Ms. Jaffe leaves open, welcoming us into her story so we feel as though we had a hand in the telling of it simply through our bond with Sadie and Ford.

The setup of this story is particularly fascinating for the effect it has on our relationship to the characters, our connection to Ford formed through Sadie’s knowledge of him, and even more interestingly, our connection to Sadie formed at a slower pace through her reactions to Ford. We know very little of Sadie before she steps into Ford’s mind, but as she discovers what his emotions feel, taste, and smell like and begins to really see him from the inside out, we begin to see her, Ford’s mind every bit as much a window into Sadie’s emotional makeup as it is his own. As she oh-so slowly begins to fall for him–easily taking us with her into the unknown–we too begin to fall for her, the pair of them inexorably linked for us; as much a single unit as they are separate entities.

The romance then is so beautifully unconventional, Sadie privy to things no teenage boy would likely want a young woman to experience with him, and because he’s completely unaware of her presence for majority of the book, the relationship is strictly–and at times painfully–one-sided. As a result, there’s a special type of heaviness that winds its way through this story, Ford’s stunning mind a maelstrom of guilt, anger, and shame, and absolutely teeming with repressed memories regarding his late brother, each chapter seeming to draw both Sadie and us closer to him and push us away at the same time. He does things that cause Sadie pain, our knowledge of his complete lack of awareness regarding her presence and feelings doing nothing to alleviate the sting of marks left in the wake of his actions, and though we can hardly blame him for his decisions, we can’t help but hope Sadie will find a way to make herself known.

Minders will not be a story for everyone, there’s almost a muted quality to it since we’re experiencing everything with Ford through Sadie, but in many ways our connection to each of them is even deeper given we have access to pieces of them they likely would never show anyone willingly. We’re inside their heads trying desperately to locate the path that will instead lead us to their hearts, often getting tangled and lost along the way, but we’re left with a strong sense of hope and a hesitant smile, comforted in the future we think we see for the two of them.

Rating: 4/5
 

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This book was sent to me by the publisher free of charge for the purpose of a review. 

I received no other compensation and the above is my honest opinion.