Blackbirds

While Miriam Black's devil-may-care attitude coupled with the wit and ultimate self-destruction would generally appeal to me as a reader, Blackbirds, Chuck Wendig's uber-popular urban fantasy series, left me flat. Chuck Wendig is a helluva writer if you have read Wanderers or Invasive you know that he has skill in weaving together a story. In Wanderers, Chuck demonstrated his ability to create a plot with a slow burn that comes together with a symphonic crash and  Invasive frankly scared the shit out of me. 

Miriam, the protagonist of Blackbirds is a chain-smoking, talking-like-a-sailor, broken person who has a curse of knowing exactly how a person will die. A curse like this would break anyone and it has Miriam cut off from physical contact and intimacy of any kind. I get that. As soon as I understood her predicament in the first chapter of the book, I understood why Miriam is the way she is. This ability needs skin-on-skin contact, and early in when she first got her curse, Miriam attempts to help people. She tries to step in and thwart what amounts to as the reaper. But she can never help. It is as if she is watching horror movies for every person she comes into contact with. Death will come for who they want, and no one will stop it.

While hopping from city to city in a vagrant lifestyle, stealing as she needs to, she comes upon a truck driver named Louis. Louis is a small beacon of light in the shit-storm that is Miriam's life. He shows her kindness when he doesn't have to and generosity when he gets nothing out of it. Miriam touches him, and low and behold, Louis is going to die a horrible death very soon. But the real punch to Miriam's gut is that she will be standing right there watching him die.

This is a real problem for her.

At the start of the novel, I could not put this book down. I plowed through the chapters. Miriam appealed to me. I enjoyed reading someone who was not so perfect and whose actions did not seem so telegraphed. It is a part of why I enjoy horror and grimdark so much. I like my characters coated in a little grime. But, Blackbirds is written with such an unlikeable character that I could not get into it. Sometimes, unlikeable is excellent. It allows the author a chance for the character to have small redeeming qualities, or at the very least make them not suck so much. I waited for the entire novel for Miriam to have that moment, and it did just not come. 

About midway through the novel, and with the addition of a few characters, I could not understand the purpose of Miriam's wanderings. I found myself wanting Wendig to get to the point. Chapters began to slog. Wendig's usual frenetic writing style I usually enjoy came in bits and pieces. A murder here, a bit of torture there, all for the sake of not pushing the plot along. I could not tell if Wendig was going for edgy rather than purposeful with the violence. I feel like early chapters in the series are setting up the future novels, which now stand at six. But as an entry point into the novel, it left me a bit confused.

I can see Miriam being a great HBO/Netflix tv show. She reminded me a lot of Jessica Jones. Similar snark, attitude about the world, and general lack of ability to take anyone's crap. But where Jones was noir, Miriam is horror.

While this did not completely do it for me, and I won't be continuing the series, I know that it will appeal to many people. It is a beloved series. So give it a swing if you like your urban fantasy with a side of horror; Miriam Black might be your gal.

This was my first Wendig novel and Ioved it! I've been slowly buying almost all of his books because three of my friends all love him. These people have never steered me wrong before and they haven't this time either. Miriam is a bad ass!!! I'm so here for her! My only regret is I didn't read it sooner. Don't be me, people. Learn from my mistake. Read this NOW!

I don't even know how to talk about this. I fucking love this book.

Blackbirds is a bit like a mashup. And I love mashups. There's Tarantino's blood, sex and gore, but brought down from cartoonish to something that's both gritty and surreal at the same time, a bit like Cronenberg. There's something like Carrie in Miriam's history, and the two ill-paired assassins reminded me of Jennifer Lynch's Surveillance (and I just realized I spoiled you for that movie if you haven't seen it, but I'm pretty that sure I am the only person on the planet that absolutely loved it, so it's probably no loss on your part). The villain is reminiscent of too many creepy white gangsters, from the European accent to his pastel Miami Vice suits, and I wanted to be mad about how stereotypical he was except that he was used so well I didn't care. The dialogue is like the self-deprecating, slightly metatextual quips of Joss Whedon, but with the dial turned up to completely obscene. I love profanity and even I thought at moments, “Who talks like this? And more importantly, who talks like this without getting punched in the face or arrested every week?” Miriam does, apparently, and if you read Chuck Wendig's website you'll know where she gets it from.

Being in Miriam's head is an experience that oscillates from a balls-out adrenaline rush to a worm-ridden disquiet. Miriam is a bad ass, but she is also a woman that's being eaten from the inside out by her past, her ability and an overwhelming self-hatred that manifests in the worst possible situations. She's haunted by graphic, ugly dreams, where every little corner of her mind seems to want to attack her and tear her to pieces. She roams constantly, picking the pockets of the dead she sees coming until she's finally tangled up with two men - one a noble-hearted and naive truck driver who she immediately adores, and the other a young, perpetually grinning con artist who is remarkably like herself, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that she loathes him, but keeps having sex with him. Their relationship is profoundly icky but unlike cough other books that would gladly pair a vulnerable female character with an arrogant, coercive male and make you believe its true love, the ick-factor here is clearly intentional. Just keep in mind - there isn't anyone who gets out of this story unscathed.

I love the flow of this story, the way it balances between the road trip aspects and a narrative plot that never feels aimless. I love how to it wraps us, I love the characters, and I love that there is going to be more. And then of course, I love the violence and messiness of it, and how comfortable and honest it feels to have a character that is just as fucked up as she seems, so much that it oozes out of her pores. I want more books like this.

(ARC provided by NetGalley.com)

I have been following Chuck Wendig for a few years now, and I have come to enjoy his writing style immensely. The story of Blackbirds is dark, following the story of a troubled young woman who can see when you die, and can't do anything to change it. The writing is fluid, the characters are interesting, and the plot is riveting.

My only critique is that the main character sounds much like Chuck, or at least sounds like the voice he presents during interviews and on his blog. This is not a bad thing, per say; but, it distracted me from remembering that the character was in fact a troubled woman, and not the middle aged self proclaimed pen monkey that entertains almost daily.

With a touch, Miriam Black knows how you're going to die. Usually Miriam's okay with this. She meets a lot of lowlifes, you see, so knowing when they're going to die makes it easy for her to be there when they do kick it, allowing her to pick up any valuables they're leaving behind. Louis is different, though. He's a good man, a kind soul. So when Miriam touches him, and realizes that she's going to be instrumental in his death, she takes it a little hard.

This was a really fun read. It's dark, and it's pretty gruesome at times, but no matter how dark it gets you're drawn in by the sense of urgency that Wendig writes with. He's got an acerbic comic tone to the darkness that he provides, as well, which helps preventing it from becoming too macabre.

Recommended for horror fans who like some sarcastic humour with their murders, and urban fantasy fans looking for something on the dark side.

Over the last couple of years, I've really enjoyed – and learned a few things – from Chuck Wendig's blog posts about writing, and have seen nothing but raves for this series from people and writers whose taste I respect and frequently agree with. But, when reading descriptions for Mockingbird it seem all that interesting to me. When the publisher was giving away e-copies last month, I figured I'd roll the dice and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

I should've stuck with my gut. This was not a book for me.

There are a lot of positives to Mockingbird. It's told with imagination, humor, style, verve, panache and skill. Everything that Wendig's blog tells you to do, he does. I don't think there was a single dud sentence in the 264 pages, and there were several spectacular ones.

However...

Miriam Black's power is fairly lame. Like Deanna Troi's – it's a neat parlor trick, but there's not much use to be made of it.

As is the case 99% of the time a book doesn't work for me, it ultimately comes down to the characters. I'll put up with a lot for characters I like – and I don't think I'm alone. I never cared about Miriam, Louis, or anyone. The villains were a little too villain-y for my taste – which, oddly, made them less threatening or interesting. If I don't care about the characters, how can I care about what happens to them?

Lastly, there were some formatting troubles with the ePub. This isn't damning or anything (or all that novel a problem) but when you're not particularly enjoying a book, minor annoyances are less minor – almost feeling like a deliberate attempt to lessen the experience.

I do want to read more by Wendig, just not in this particular world.