A dystopian world where technology rules not only the social aspect of peoples lives but literally their physical movements and thoughts. This uniquely brilliant and totally creative world that Kate Dylan has created gives you vibes of Aurora Rising while making you think slightly of a terminator complex.
Every character has their own inner pain and reasoning as to why they are the way they are, and that in its self is so easy to connect to as a reader and use that to integrate yourself into this story from the very first chapter. The plot takes you on a twisting path through every angle that you can sync with like a circuit board not quite knowing where the end will be or what you are truly powering until it is revealed.

Although I am not the biggest a sci-fi fan, there are some books that I can not help but read and love. I have to say that I really did love this book the way in which the world was created, the creativity that the author has obviously fully put her heart and soul into, and of course the beautiful cover that just matches the intrigue the book flares with.

The only critical bit I have (because I promised myself to be completely honest on views) is that I wish there were certain bits that have been expanded slightly. There’s several reveals with characters information that I wish had a bit more page space and I feel like that would’ve given them that extra bit of depth.

Apart from that I really did like the book and if you are an Aurora Rising fan like myself then I would 100% say walk straight to your local bookshop pick this beauty up and then go curl up in a ball at home and read it.

I loved this one, so full of twists and turns, I practically listened to this in one sitting. It reminded me of the Illuminae trilogy and Skyward series, and will definitely appeal to those audiences. I did struggle at the beginning as it was a little info-dumpy but after a couple chapters it really came in to it's own. Recommended for ages 14 and up.

An immersive and fast-paced science fiction standalone novel that keeps you on your toes at all times.

Our main character Sil Sarah is 18 years old and nearing the end of her time as a Mindwalker for Syntex, a private corporation which has developed technology that has saved humanity from extinction following the nuclear incident called the Annihilation. With around a year left to live before the technology in her head ends her life, she finds herself on the wrong side of a mission for the very first time and has to discover for herself what the corporation she's working for is capable of. Encountering a group called the Analog Army [led by the mysterious Ryder], she begins to unravel the story she has been told (and told herself) for a long time.

This was such an exciting listen/read - with easy to understand sci-fi futuristic setting to a minimal cast of characters each with a purpose, this book kept me intrigued. I don't ordinarily listen to audiobooks as quickly as this one, but I just couldn't stop listening! I found the story was also very easy to translate to the real world, while it also felt miles away!

The narrator for this audiobook felt a bit mechanic, but I found that worked given the setting we found ourselves in and the kind of vibe being presented so it didn't bother me as much.

Overall this was by far one of my best listens of the year - hands down!

<i>I received a complimentary copy of this audiobook via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review, which I leave voluntarily</i>

Omg . I absolutely loved this book. Plot twists . Action non stop though out the book. Each chapter made me read more and more. And the enemies to loves was amazing. It was interesting to read something new and futuristic life of technology everywhere.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for providing me with a digital arc of this audiobook book in return for my honest opinion.

I utterly adored this book and could not stop listening. I finished it in two days and loved every second reading it… I would have finished it in one sitting if I didn’t have to go to work! Stephanie Cannon is a fantastic audiobook narrator.

Mindwalker is a gripping, fast paced YA Dystopian Sci-Fi. 18 year old Sil Sarrah works as a Mindwalker for the Syntex Corporation and is one of their best agents. As a Mindwalker she has the ability to enter the consenting minds of Syntex agents and take over their bodies in order to guide them to safety and out of dangerous situations. The problem is, the supercomputer implanted in her brain that enables this ability is also a death sentence - killing most agents by the time they’re 19.

When a mission goes wrong Sil is forced to flee everything and everyone she knows in order to clear her name.

I really loved Kate Dylan’s style of writing and the futuristic dystopian world building in this book. I am keen to read more by Kate Dylan. This is one of my new favourite reads. I don’t know if this is a standalone or the first book in the series, but, I’d love to see what happens next and read more books set in this world.

Mindwalker is a YA sci-fi/dystopian book set in a world where humans live alongside nano technology which keeps them alive in a world ravaged by nuclear storms. One big company who produces this nano-tec is called Syntex Corporation. They also train a select few people to become “Walkers”, people with special technology implanted in their brains which allows them to remotely access the minds of field agents and rescue them from dangerous situations. The one issue is that this technology breaks down, and the walkers don’t live long past the age of 18.

Sil Sarrah is the main character and a walker. She has recently turned 18 and is entering the “twilight” phase of her life. She has never lost a field agent during a rescue and she plans to keep it that way for however long she has left.

Sil is pressured into going on a mission without any details, and the outcome eventually leads her to having to runaway from Syntax. This is when Sil meets Ryder, the leader of a faction who are trying to take down Syntax. She will have to work with him to be able to find her way home.

I really enjoyed the beginning of this story, I liked the world building and the characters. The concept seemed really interesting too. But unfortunately the book began to get a bit boring for me by the second half.

The narrator did a great job for Sil’s voice, but I wasn’t a fan of her voicing for Ryder, she made him sound too young.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who’s a sci-fi fan, even thought it didn’t work for me I can see it working for a lot of people.

A thrilling and cinematic sci-fi novel that's genuinely a good laugh too! I had so much fun with this release, and hope it paves the way for more YA sci-fi!

“Now I feel like a wind-up toy taking on its maker, fighting a war I lost any hope of winning ten years ago.”

Mindwalker was the kind of science fiction anyone can enjoy. I think the genre is often (and probably incorrectly) classified as inaccessible. Too much science, not enough fiction usually. This was science fiction that was easy to understand.
I can see why the author sold this as a Marvel movie in a book. Begrudging hero, snarky side characters, banter between enemies teaming up to fight a bigger bad guy. It kind of felt like what happened if a Marvel movie and the Capitol in The Hunger Games had a baby.
I think together the characters were a really interesting combination. I liked the relationships they built.
The plot was also quite fast paced, really picking up at the end when it threw some curveballs at the end I just wasn’t expecting.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Net Galley for access to an ARC copy of this book in exchange for ah honest review.

Mindwalker is a fun and action-packed scifi adventure, filled with emotional turns and intriguing worldbuilding, and incredibly high stakes. Great for fans of techno dystopia and cyberpunk, with questions of free will and capitalistic structure. A little run of the mill for its genre, but Sil makes for a brilliant protagonist, with a voice that puts a unique twist on it in her active contribution to the status quo, and the lengths to which she has to go to unlearn her indoctrination.

The voice actor for the audiobook was dynamic and wellpaced throughout the book, with a good variation between narrative and dialogue, although her characters all sounded fairly similar.

4/5

Wonderful. LOVED Mindwalker. Brilliantly plotted, some fantastic ethical questions perfect for a book club, scenes that had me holding my breath and scenes that made the tears flow. Wonderful narration. What more can you ask for! If YA sci-fi is your thing then you want to pop this on your TBR.

Mindwalker is stunning, enthralling and so incredibly fun to read. I can honestly say I changed my plans to finish it in one day. From a sex-positive YA romance to a truly terrifying depiction of a capitalist post-apocalyptic dystopia, Dylan has created a world that was a joy to read and will stay with me for a long time.

Sil is the protagonist of my dreams. She is hyper-competent, dedicated to her friends and brave to the point of genuine stupidity. The technology that rules her live makes her powerful and vulnerable so that I was rooting for her through the whole book.

Her romance is also just PERFECT. I love that this relationship was allowed to be significant but also impactful, which is a difficult balance to achieve. The fact that Sil’s friendships and family were also influential in her story? Just icing on the cake.

I really cannot recommend this book enough and am so excited for it to be out in the world.

Thank you to Hodder and Stoughton and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Oh my goodness this book is amazing! I haven't read much science fiction/dystopia recently so it was amazing to get back into such a fascinating and scary world. The plot of this book is so unique and I was completely gripped from the beginning. Sil is a highly engaging MC and there was even a twist at the end that completely floored me. Kate Dylan has written a masterpiece and I cannot wait to read whatever she publishes next! I also really enjoyed the narrator

'Do not surrender control.' — Mindwalker, Kate Dylan (2022).

Eighteen-year-old Sil Sarrah is no common girl. With a perfect score in the mindwalker program, initiated twenty years ago by corporate Syntex, she is among the elite soldiers recognised for helping a dying society. Syntex is all her life, and soon to be her death too. When her CIP starts to show failure, Sil knows she hasn't much time left—one year, if everything goes well. For the record, it didn't—go well. At all. Chosen to give a performance for the high-ranked officers, she's accused of having stolen strictly confidential papers and killing the host whose mind she walked into. From then on, Sil runs for her life and is forced to make an alliance with renegades.


I loved this story! It was so fresh and it changed from what I usually read. Cyberpunk truly is a genre that should be more developed because I find such great points in exploring it, on politics and environmental issues for instance.

The narrator of this audiobook had a very enjoyable voice, and I appreciated that she made efforts to change it depending on the character. The only thing I would 'criticise' with the audiobook is that there are so much information given, so many different pieces of vocabulary, that I found it sometimes hard to follow. I think I would have liked this book even more (like, six stars haha) if I had had a physical copy before my eyes.

But it didn't prevent me from liking the whole narrative of the girl who finds her world completely shattered to pieces when someone turns their back on her. Sil is a very powerful character. I believe her charms came with the fact that being so often among techs and machines, she starts to lose her emotions. She only has some for the two persons she loves at Syntex, her two best friends. Leaving Syntex helps her to find her humanity back again: she meets Ryder, who believes that every life is worth saving and who is determined to reach his goal. I could feel an enormous gap when they meet, since Ryder is profoundly marked by loss and grief, like the two women that work with him, unlike Sil whose life is filled with death and who doesn't bother grieving anymore. She's a loner.

I really liked the idea of mind-walking people and hacking their systems to control them. In a sense, I found it kind of true: people are easily influenced these days, so the whole story seemed like a simile for that. I think that Kate Dylan developed it well: the pacing was good, the world-building too, so I never got bored. I absolutely adored the ending, the plot twist and the choices made by Sil.

In a nutshell, Mindwalker is THE new sci-fi novel to read if you love cyberpunk and good angst! I would definitely recommend it to readers from then on!

Thank you Hodder and Stoughton Audio and Netgalley for the opportunity to discover and review this audiobook!

A totally hrilland and exiting ride that takes you on the most increible journey. A unique and intriging tale of total wonder and disbelief. A wild adventure into the unknown kingdom of the mind and questions everything that makes humans human. Fascinating in our age of advancing technology, just how much can a person take! A fascinating heroine, secrets and colourful characters with a fast pace story and plot that has you gripped from start to finish. Lots of questions to be answered, leaves you asking yourself more than a few too! A great read.

I’m not a huge sci-fi reader, but I really enjoyed this.

It was easy to understand the terminology, the plot was good and I didn’t see the twist coming.

It kind of has a Ready Player One type of feel due to the “mindwalking” aspect. It’s exactly what it sounds like, they practically walk into peoples minds.

There’s also an underlying message of consent and permission which I think is very important, especially in this day and age.

And, for my romance girlies, there is an enemies-to-lovers type of beat in here which I LOVED.

As someone who loved The Aurora Cycle, I loved the AI in here as well.

I’d recommend this book to people who aren’t huge sci-fi readers but want to dip their toes in.

Christ that was.... predictable, but enjoyable.

In this book we follow a girl called Sil Sarrah that has a very high-tech supercomputer grafted to her brain. This special computer with its accompanying AI Jarvis, allows her to see and analyze the world around her in seconds. A necessary skill needed to perform her job as a Walker for the Syntex corporation, which means to rescue their field agents by entering their minds and taking control of their bodies. And Sil is the best they’ve ever seen. There’s only one problem, Walkers don’t live past 19 and Sil’s time’s running out. And when she’s framed and branded a traitor, she runs for her life, determined to prove she’s innocent. But when she uncovers a secret that threatens to destroy everything she’s ever worked for, she’s forced to decide where her allegiances lie.

So, I listened to this as an audiobook, and I have to say I’m happily surprised. This book was really good and filled with tension and action, and I really enjoyed listening to it.

This story is set in a future America, and I think it was described very nicely with enough details that I could picture the setting as I was listening. The character felt complex and real and was far from one-dimensional. And the plot was solid and was interesting to follow from start to finish. Sure, the plot is kind of predictable and standard in a way, as was the romance and twists. I can’t say I was surprised by anything that happened in this book, but as long as I’m entertained, I don’t mind.

I love the tech that’s described and how it is described in a way that makes me think that it’s real. I can imagine these things being real, and as a tech freak myself, I would really love to see all of these things this world has to offer.

I don’t really have a lot of negative things to say here, but there was one thing that drove me nuts while listening. The characters keep repeating the phrase “Christ that was” like three thousand times per chapter (at least that’s how it felt). It’s too much, and it should have been used for just one character and not all the time. It’s annoying. Especially in an audiobook.

Second thing that I didn’t really like was how the narrator did the male voices in dialogue. The boys here are 18 years old, but the narrator makes them sound like they’d be in their fifties or something. It’s odd and strange and when this weird dark “grandpa”-voice she uses are supposed to be the romantic interest of our 18-year-old lead, it just gives me the creeps. That, however, isn’t the writer’s fault so that’s not impacting my rating at all obviously.

But all in all, this is a good book, and I can’t do much more than recommend it to all of you who like a fast-paced and easy to read sci-fi.

5/5 stars.

this audiobook of Mindwalker is amazing. Stephanie Cannon is definitely a perfect actress to narrating this book. I loved how her voice were like flowing with the words, she knew perfectly how to play the roles, especially for Ryder and Aja. Loved everything about the audiobook.

This was not my usual type of read as I tend to be more into the fantasy rather than sci fi but I have to say this book was amazing. To hooked me immediately and kept me guessing all through. The characters were well written and I felt their journey play out and found myself rooting for them. The plot was incredibly well written with enough depth and twists to have me loving every second. Five stars well deserved.

Set in a not-so-distant future, “Mindwalker” presents a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is more divided than ever, espionage is present at every corner and enhanced people can take over the mind of a person, this person being called a “mindwalker”. This, combined with popular YA concepts from dystopian novels such as “Divergent” and “The Hunger Games” make for a cute read, if only you can get over the poor vocabulary and repetitiveness of phrases such as “Christ that was”. I couldn’t. The same goes for the pace of the story, which is very fast at the beginning and then just slows down for what is almost 80% of the book only to go back in Sonic-speed in the last few chapters.

But, if you can get over all the negative points, I listed above, it’s a good read.

Special thanks to NetGalley, Hodder & Stoughton Audio, Hodder & Stoughton, and the editorial team for giving me the opportunity to review the ARC in audiobook format and to you, my reader, for taking the time to read this honest personal book review.

If you are interested in other of my book reviews, make sure to follow me on GoodReads!

#Mindwalker #NetGalley #LifeLongLearning

Mind-Blowingly Good

🧡 Please take this review in the spirit in which it is intended, which entails me hyperventilating as I fan-girl scream at you to Get. This. Audiobook. It simply has everything you - yes you - want from a dystopian tech-thriller. There are teens controlling the minds of secret agents, dark tech, sinister conspiracies and just a smidge of reluctant romance. It’s snarky, it’s fast-paced and, quite frankly, fun.

💚 If I had to compare this to other works - and let’s face it, I have to - I’d say it’s got the revolutionary undertone of Hunger Games (and more than a bit of Katniss in main character Sil Sarrah), a Minority-Report-ish vibe to the plot and just a smidge of the 1995 cult classic, Hackers.
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🎧 Everything about this audiobook simply works. It’s easy to follow without sacrificing on thrills. The dialogue shines in its sarcastic glory and Stephanie Cannon’s interpretation of Sil Sarrah is so vivid and authentic. She comes across as formidable and fiery yet likeable. Zero complaints.

Big thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton Audio for providing me with an ALC in return for an honest review.