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Adult Review: Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

4/20/2012

7 Comments

 
Blackbirds cover
Blackbirds (Miriam Black, #1)
Author: Chuck Wendig
Publication Date: 4/24/12
Publisher: Angry Robot

Blurb:
Miriam Black knows when you will die. She’s foreseen hundreds of car crashes, heart attacks, strokes, and suicides.

But when Miriam hitches a ride with Louis Darling and shakes his hand, she sees that in thirty days Louis will be murdered while he calls her name. Louis will die because he met her, and she will be the next victim.

No matter what she does she can’t save Louis. But if she wants to stay alive, she’ll have to try.

Review:

There have been a few conversations on Goodreads lately concerning the dangers of labeling and categorizing books, especially books written by women and especially calling them chick-lit or dystopian romance. Many eloquently and convincingly argued that giving fiction written by women these labels is dangerous and detrimental because it dismisses these books and alienates its potential male readers. On a logical level, I do understand these people's concerns, but personally, I don't feel like women are being underrepresented in publishing. Most of the books I read are written by women, most of my favorite authors are women, so it is hard for me to relate and lament the fact that if some book is called a romance, then we, people who label it so, take away the author's livelihood and stop men from reading it. I suppose, men are generally disinterested in books dedicated to "women's issues," but must it always have something to do with sexism and ten kinds of malice? Where am I going with this? Well, I just want to make a point that some books genuinely do not work for us, because they are written by an author of the opposite sex, no sexism needs to come into play. This is the case with Blackbirds, a book, which, I believe, I would have liked more if it didn't have so much dude in it.

Blackbirds has all the elements of an excellent urban fantasy novel. And it would have been one, if it were written by Stacia Kane, for example. The book's main character, Miriam, has an ability to know how a person will die by having a skin-to-skin contact with him or her (this reminds me of some other books with similar powers, maybe Harper Connelly series by Charlaine Harris?). She uses this ability to take advantage of the dying people, normally by following them close to their death moment and cleaning out their wallets. Miriam seems to be unable to change the course of people's lives and postpone anyone's death, so she carries on knowing everyone's last moments, but not doing anything about it. That is until she meets a long-distance truck driver Louis who is nice to her and who she knows will die in a gruesome way a couple of weeks after meeting Miriam and with Miriam's name on his lips.

The plot unfolds roughly as you would expect any urban fantasy (series) to unfold. There is a romantic entanglement (or two), some drugs, some sex (not sexy), a mystery, and lots and lots of violence and gore. I would have totally been down for this plot, if not for a few things.

Wendig writes from Miriam's POV (3rd person). And I have the same problems with his woman's voice that I have with all the YA novels written by female writers from POV's of young lads  who sound like middle-aged women. It's just not believable. Miriam's narrative is peppered with the amount of dick and dick-related tangents and jokes that are characteristic of only male-written books. (Sorry, guys, we are just not that preoccupied with your members.) And, in general, I found Miriam's voice too labored for my taste. Too much strained wit, even in the most inopportune and life-threatening moments, is not something I enjoy.

The other thing that turned me off about this novel is the bare, cinematic quality of it. Sometimes you come across books that just have no "meat." Wendig has the plot down, the dialog is OK, but his characters appear to be operating in a vacuum. There is no sense of place, no atmosphere, little to no emotion, but mostly events and conversations happening one after another.

And the last thing that I never in a million years thought I would complain about. There is way too much gore and nastiness in this book. It is often gratuitous and too gross, which is especially jarring when not balanced with depth and emotion and solid motivations. You have blood galore, cut-off body parts, eye boogers, bodies ground in a garbage disposal. Not to mention the term "blumpy" I learned which I now desire to erase from my mind forever (google it at your own risk). A lot of this was an overkill and not fully justified by the novel's plot.

My advice about Blackbirds? Skip it, unless you are a dude or have a taste for gross, and read Zoo City instead.

2.5/5 stars

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7 Comments
Catie (The Readventurer) link
4/19/2012 10:36:30 pm

I'm just reading another book right now that is very gory and over-the-top disgusting in parts and I was just thinking this very morning about how I need that to be tempered with true emotion and depth to be able to handle it. I don't like gore just for the sake of it either. (Luckily this book I'm reading has a ton of depth so I'm enjoying it.)

Thanks for the very informative review today! There have been a few books that had too much "dude" for me too (like the Dresden files, for example).

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
4/20/2012 02:52:45 am

Are you talking about China's book?

I noticed that about genre fiction mostly. I guess people write about what they find entertaining, and that is different for men and women. I like Dennis Lehane, for instance, but he, like the majority of male authors, doesn't know how to write romance or sex or women properly and believably. But he is skillful enough to compensate for it in a different way, just like Bacigalupi.

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Catie (The Readventurer) link
4/20/2012 05:01:14 am

Yep! His books have all kinds of crazy things - but I think that he actually writes women and the limited romance that he includes very well. Now that I read Noelle's comment, I realize that I too tend to like a whole bunch of traditionally "male" things. And I do love Tarantino. Maybe I'll like this one after all!

Noelle link
4/20/2012 03:42:26 am

I've had the ARC for awhile but haven't gotten too far in it yet. So far I'm getting a bit of a Tarantino vibe.

I can't pre-judge something on the "dude" factor because some of my favorite things most girls would say were dude oriented: NBA basketball, war docs/miniseries, action and special effects sequences in movies etc...

I have a low gore for gore's sake tolerance though so I'm not excited about that. I guess I'll see how it goes :) Thanks for the review!

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
4/20/2012 03:49:00 am

Tarantino is a spot-on comparison, Noelle. His movies definitely came to my mind while I was reading this book. Some scenes (especially flashbacks) could have come out of Kill Bill.

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Heidi link
4/23/2012 08:52:41 am

I have to say I'm sad to read this review, but I'm not surprised. I was looking forward to Blackbirds, after all, it sounds awesome, and the cover is one of the most amazing ones I've seen this year. That said, I think I would share pretty much ALL of the issues you mentioned. I don't mind 'dude' books, but when a man tries to write from a woman's perspective and does so poorly? Ick. I'm actually happy to have read your thoughts, as now I'm pretty sure I WILL skip this one and read Zoo City, which has been on my TBR for some time. Thanks for the review!

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Tatiana (The Readventurer) link
4/23/2012 11:39:41 am

Heidi, I feel like this is a book in a genre that is mostly read by women, by written in a way that only select women will enjoy. I personally don't have many lady reader-friends who will.

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