Review: Sister Assassin by Kiersten White

Title: Sister Assassin

Author: Kiersten White

Series: Mind Games #1

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication date: 19 February 2013

Format: ebook - Netgalley

Genre: YA | Paranormal

 

 

She never chose her deadly gift but now she’s forced to use it. How far would you go to protect the only family you have left?

Annie is beset by fleeting strange visions and a guilty conscience. Blind and orphaned, she struggles to care for her feisty younger sister Fia, but things look up when both sisters are offered a place at Kessler School for Exceptional Girls.

Born with flawless intuition, Fia immediately knows that something’s wrong, but bites her tongue… until it’s too late. For Fia is the perfect weapon to carry out criminal plans and there are those at Kessler who will do anything to ensure her co-operation.

With Annie trapped in Kessler’s sinister clutches, instincts keep Fia from killing an innocent guy and everything unravels. Is manipulative James the key to the sisters’ freedom or an even darker prison? And how can Fia atone for the blood on her hands?

My thoughts:

I was already a fan of this author before I started this book. I didn't know what to expect after reading the summary though. I immediately picked up on how different it was to anything I've read from Kiersten White before.

By the end of the first page I had already fallen in love with Fia. And by the end of the book I realised Fia is actually incredibly well written. There's a really dark tone that I noticed when I read her points of view, they steadily got darker and darker when Fia got especially desperate in her efforts to protect her older sister. I really loved how she would go out of her way to protect Annie, how flawed of a character she really is and just how smart she could be at times. Fia had this ability that meant she couldn't make a wrong decision - she had flawless instincts and that came through really well in the story. I never thought it would be such a cool ability to have, but Fia would know where to go, who to talk to and how to do things without even necessarily knowing why. The book starts off showcasing Fia's skills when she decides not to kill Adam even if Annie suffers because of it - her instincts just tell her to.

 

Admittedly, I had a little bit of a problem with Annie for quite a bit of the book. She came across as a little too selfish in my opinion, especially at the beginning. I felt like Fia was left with all the horrible things to deal with while Annie was in her own little world pretending nothing was wrong. I understand that it's supposed to be like that, at least for the majority of the book,but it didn't come across in the right way sometimes. 

 

I really loved the plot. It was really exciting with all of the action and suspense. I could feel Fia's desperation and Annie's fear, it made the read utterly enthralling. The book as a whole did feel like an introduction to the series at times, like it was just getting incredibly exciting and then nothing would happen - I feel like a lot of it has been saved for the next book. What did happen though kept me from putting the book down - I read it entirely in one sitting because I was completely invested in needing to know what happens to the characters.

 

Overall I really enjoyed this book. I can't wait to find out what happens in the next book, especially with that ending. I recommend this to any fan of YA, especially readers who are fans of Kiersten White - she's definitely come out with yet another great book!

 

My rating: 8/10

 

 

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