Review: Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken

Never Fade (The Darkest Minds, #2) by Alexandra Bracken
Publisher: Harper Collins Australia
Publication date: October 15th, 2013
Number of pages: 508 Pgs
Format: Paperback
Purchase: Amazon | The Book Depository  | Bookworld Australia

Ruby never asked for the abilities that almost cost her her life. Now she must call upon them on a daily basis. Other kids in the Children's League call Ruby 'Leader', but she knows what she really is - a monster.

When Ruby is entrusted with an explosive secret, she must embark on her most dangerous mission yet - leaving the Children's League behind. Crucial information about the disease that killed most of America's children - and turned Ruby and the others who lived into feared and hated outcasts - has survived every attempt to destroy it. But the truth is only saved in one place - in the hands of Liam Stewart, the boy Ruby once believed was her future and who now wouldn't recognise her.

As Ruby sets out across a desperate, lawless country to find Liam, she is torn between old friends and the promise she made to serve the League. Ruby will do anything to protect the people she loves. But what if survival was never an option?

The Darkest Minds was a book I really liked, but it was nothing compared to Never Fade. This story was emotional, heartbreaking, angsty, full of action, mystery, loss and hope.
It brings everything that we had in The Darkest Minds and blows it to extreme proportions, to a point I never thought it would go. If I could find any other words to describe how it made me feel, I would. You'll have to read it for yourself.

We have new characters, new adventures and so much more. It all starts the moment Liam takes Cole's jacket. It's not the jacket itself that it important, but rather what was inside of it that counts. One moment in time can change everything, everything afterward that occurs is only because of this one event. The rest, we say is history.

We're introduced to Cole. He also happens to be Liam's brother, and that just makes everything so complicated. Cole is an interesting character --  doesn't compare to Liam, who I love, who I have loved from the first book, but is an interesting one all the same. It was nice to see other angles to this story, to see another character that we didn't know about before, who is also involved with everything, you just didn't realize until now.
But Liam....
I adored him in The Darkest Minds, but after what Ruby had done to him at the end of the book, I had no idea where things would take them. My heart just gotten torn out. You have to feel for him. He has these feelings for her... he feels them, he just doesn't remember them.

"I feel like...I feel like I'm losing my damn mind, like your face has been carved into my heart, and I don't remember when, and I don't understand why, but the scar is there, and I can't get it to heal. It won't go. I can't make it fade. And you won't even look at me.” 

“I think I'm losing it—I don't know what's happening, what happened, but I look at you, I look at you, and I love you so much. Not because of anything you've said, or done, or anything at all. I look at you, and I just love you, and it terrifies me. It terrifies me what I would do for you.” 

The emotions not only that Liam felt, but what he made me feel as well during those scenes. It made me fall in love with him, and him and Ruby all over again.
Too much angst. I could barely get through the page without tearing up.

Along with a crazy-give-me-book-3-now  cliffhanger, this has got to be one of the most addicting books I've read this year.

This review was a big thank you to Harper Collins for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.  Sorry it has taken me so long to review it! *sadface*

5 Stars.