Don’t Even Think About It by Sarah Mlynowski
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Paranormal
Published by: Orchard Books
Pages: 304
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★.5
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

Don’t Even Think About It is about a group of students, from the same tutor group, that all develop telepathy and subsequently have to deal with that. They all have secrets that they don’t want shared, and they all have things they’d rather not hear. Lies can’t go unnoticed, and opinions can’t be hidden.

It’s hard to explain the narrative, because although it was third person, it was also collective. In the beginning of the book I found this strange because I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, however once it had been explained as ‘if you can read each others thoughts it’s hard to know the boundaries of your own mind, and where your thoughts end and the next person’s start, it worked extremely well. I liked the majority of the characters, but would have liked to have read about some of the lesser characters too who also had telepathy. One of  my favourite story lines was Tess’ and Olivia’s because they both really grew as characters and their development was enjoyable to read. I also had a fondness for Pi’s story, because suddenly her intelligence doesn’t mean as much when everybody can just read her mind and copy her answers, and I really liked to read about how she dealt with the situation.

I loved how everyone’s thoughts were believable for their age group. The teenagers’ thoughts were pretty much along the lines of what I imagine other teens thinking, the adult’s thought, maybe not so much, but I think there needed to be that distinction between the age groups so the adults generally thought of more explicit things. Each of the main character’s thoughts were an extension of their personality as well, which might sound like a weird comment to make, but considering the majority of the conversations happened in listed italics the thoughts needed to be easily connected to the characters who were speaking.

Mackenzie’s was probably one of my least favourite story lines, which was a shame, because she had quite a significant role in the novel, but I just couldn’t connect to her attitude or character. I was intrigued by characters like Brinn and would definitely like to hear more about her, and others like Nike, in the sequels.

The pacing was quite slow, but everyone had to come to terms with their new super powers, so that’s understandable, but the drama was what made me keep reading! So much drama! At literally every corner something is happening to at least five of the characters that you can’t help but want to read. It was like reading one big book of gossip, rumours and opinions. Amazing.

Overall, I enjoyed Don’t Even Think About It, but I would’ve liked even more action from the sort of government agency and even more teamwork from class 10B.