A review by kblincoln
Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig
4.0
4.5 stars
Reading Miriam is like waking up from a hangover to a slap in the face. She walks so close to death (and the terrible images of people dying) that she is now a chain-smoking, gritty, hard-core, con-man kind of girl just trying to make her way through life in as numb a state as possible.
Yet she utterly wins you over. Even when she's making bad, bad, bad decisions.
When Miriam touches people's skin, she sees the hour and manner of their death. It's enough to make any girl seek solace at the bottom of a whiskey glass, but Miriam's got it under control--sort of-- until she sees the death of a trucker who gives her a lift.
He is being tortured and he says her name.
The story of what Miriam does with this knowledge is equal parts con-man caper, thriller, and tightly plotted backstory of trailer trash life laced with the most deliciously creeptastic and evil duo (plus their boss) I've come across since Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
They are awful. Really, really, cut off your foot after you've confessed the whereabouts of your stolen drugs and keep it in a plastic baggie to boil down into prophecy bones awful.
And it all ain't over even at the end. The final scenes where Miriam confronts the death-vision she's been dreading sets you up nicely by giving you some info about the nature of Miriam's ability to control fate as well as hinting her graphic/disturbing dreams are more than they seem.
Not a book for the YA crowd. But its certainly rollicking. And Miriam's voice will win you over despite the cigarette-raspy, unabashedly sexual, calloused heart nature of it. The writing is transparent, graphic, and visually evocative. I'll be getting the next one in the series.
Reading Miriam is like waking up from a hangover to a slap in the face. She walks so close to death (and the terrible images of people dying) that she is now a chain-smoking, gritty, hard-core, con-man kind of girl just trying to make her way through life in as numb a state as possible.
Yet she utterly wins you over. Even when she's making bad, bad, bad decisions.
When Miriam touches people's skin, she sees the hour and manner of their death. It's enough to make any girl seek solace at the bottom of a whiskey glass, but Miriam's got it under control--sort of-- until she sees the death of a trucker who gives her a lift.
He is being tortured and he says her name.
The story of what Miriam does with this knowledge is equal parts con-man caper, thriller, and tightly plotted backstory of trailer trash life laced with the most deliciously creeptastic and evil duo (plus their boss) I've come across since Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.
They are awful. Really, really, cut off your foot after you've confessed the whereabouts of your stolen drugs and keep it in a plastic baggie to boil down into prophecy bones awful.
And it all ain't over even at the end. The final scenes where Miriam confronts the death-vision she's been dreading sets you up nicely by giving you some info about the nature of Miriam's ability to control fate as well as hinting her graphic/disturbing dreams are more than they seem.
Not a book for the YA crowd. But its certainly rollicking. And Miriam's voice will win you over despite the cigarette-raspy, unabashedly sexual, calloused heart nature of it. The writing is transparent, graphic, and visually evocative. I'll be getting the next one in the series.