Mind Games by Shana Silver
Published by: Swoon Reads
Publication date: August 27th 2019
Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Young Adult

My Review:

I’ve always loved technology and it’s ability to simplify our lives. As a software engineer, I’m forever fascinated by things like AI and Internet of Things, and how we leverage them to automate our most menial tasks, like turning a light on or setting a thermostat. But Mind Games takes the concept of innovation a step further. 

What if you could archive your favorite memories and play them again and again? Welcome to HiveMind, the technology of the future that transfers all your memories to a remote server so you can play them any time you want. Memory loss, a thing of the past with HiveMind! Except, what if it isn’t? 

Meet Arden Vargas, daughter of HiveMind inventor, and high school student at genius school MVP. Arden wakes up one morning suddenly aware that she has no memories of her senior project, or her fellow classmate Sebastian, who is also missing memories. In a race against the clock, Arden and Sebastian must work together to recover their memories, and finish their project, or face dire consequences. 

Told entirely from Arden’s perspective, Mind Games takes on the ethics of biotech in a refreshing way. I loved Arden as a character. She is the perfect balance of smart and interesting. As a software engineer, I’m always intrigued by how women in tech are portrayed in pop culture. Usually smart and interesting are mutually exclusive. Women who are technically savvy are usually awkward or unattractive, or they’re portrayed as dumb in some way. It’s infuriating. But Arden is not that. 

I loved this book. Silver did an excellent job of making Arden smart, but not pretentious. The story was compelling, without being cheesy. I found it incredibly thought-provoking, touching on issues of ethics in technology, but also identity and what it means to be human. Plus, in true Swoon Reads fashion, it had quite a swoon-worthy romance. I highly recommend Mind Games to fans of YA, Romance, and Science Fiction. There’s a little something for everyone in it. I hope you find it as engaging as I did.

Thank you to @xpressotours for the opportunity to be on this tour, and to @swoonreads for my review copy!

Goodreads Synopsis:

A teen programmer at a school for geniuses must join forces with a boy she can’t remember to stop a hacker from deleting their memories in Shana Silver’s action-packed YA debut, Mind Games.

Arden sells memories. Whether it’s 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 fifteen minutes of her life and all her memories of the boy across the school yard. The 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 removed. And she’s not the only one: her mysterious crush, Sebastian, has lost ALL of his memories. But how can they find someone who has the power to make them forget everything they’ve learned?

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Author Bio:

Rachel Shane (writing as Shana Silver) studied creative writing at Syracuse University. She’s been a computer animator, an e-book creator for a major publisher, and now works as a Project Manager in digital and TV advertising where she enjoys telling people what to do. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, young daughter, and the characters she dreams up.

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