Tuesday, December 31, 2019

REVIEW: Blackbird by Anna Carey



Blackbird by Anna CareyFrom the author of the Eve trilogy comes the breathless story of a girl racing to figure out who she is—and how to stay alive. When a nameless girl wakes up on the subway tracks, she knows only one thing for sure: people want her dead. Can she find them before they track her down? This pulse-pounding contemporary thriller is perfect for fans of The Maze Runner, The Darkest Minds, and Legend.

Things I Know Are True:


I am in Los Angeles
I woke up on the train tracks at the Vermont/Sunset station
I am a teenage girl
I have long black hair
I have a bird tattoo on the inside of my right wrist with the letters and numbers FNV02198
People are trying to kill me





MY THOUGHTS
I have had this book on my TBR for quite a while and I just finally got around to reading it. I found some parts of the mystery interesting and this was a pretty quick read, but I was a little let down by this book.

A little info about the book: You wake up on the subway tracks with no memory of who you are. A number in a notebook leads you to a crime scene and now the police think you are a thief. Strangers keep following you, trying to kill you, and you struggle with the small snippets of memory you have. You have to figure out who you are and why these people are after you.

What drew me to add this to my TBR in the first place was mainly the second-person perspective. I do not see very many books in this perspective and I always think it is a unique way to tell a story. It is easy to get wrong--and to make a book annoying to read--but I think it made sense for the book. The MC does not know her name, so it is an interesting way to avoid the use of her name. It also makes parts of the book fast-paced and adds some suspense.

There were moments that it felt off, like with the romance. I did not like the romance at all and I honestly do not think romance works well with the second-person narration. What really bothered me about the romance, though, was how quick it escalated. The MC meets a boy named Ben at the supermarket and she ends up staying with him for a little bit. They know each other for a week and they are already hooking up and Ben wants them to run away together. It just seemed really odd, especially since Ben was so chill about everything. He felt like a really static character to be honest because he had no personality. He was just the “love interest” and was just there to occasionally help the MC (but he was never part of solving the mystery).

As for the MC, I was not sure how I felt about her. Because of the second person narration, you would think that you would connect with the MC more, but it made me more aware of how I would not go about these situations. For instance, the MC is distrustful of many things, for good reason, but she trusts Ben so easily. In the beginning, when she meets the mysterious caller [highlight to view spoiler], she picks a lock because the office door is closed and gets framed for a crime. But why would you do that? If I were meeting someone in an office, I would not automatically try to pick the lock. It just seemed really dumb. It only really served to A) Prevent the MC from going to the police and B) Show that the MC can pick locks, which does not really come up again. [end of spoiler] I just did not agree with some of her choices.

This book is a mystery/thriller book, but it felt more thriller than mystery. The MC is running around LA getting chased, following others, breaking into places, and it is all very fast-paced. The thriller aspect put me off of the story because, while I finished the book very quickly, I am not the biggest fan of thrillers. I like mysteries, but thrillers to me are more chase scenes and fights and lots of running, which is what this book felt like. There is a mystery because the MC is trying to figure out who she is and what is going on. Some of the mystery is really intrigued and I did find myself wanting to know more, but I found myself unsatisfied with the mystery. What I like about mysteries is trying to guess along with the MC. In this book, things happened so quickly, that I was not able to guess or, because of the MC’s dumb choices, I felt like I was forced into knowing only what she figured out. I did not feel like I could guess on my own. There were some twists that I found very surprising, but sometimes they did not make sense. [highlight to view spoiler] We find out that Ben is a Watcher, but... I have no idea what that is. It is not really clear what the Watchers are, but it upsets the MC even though she should not really know what that is. [end of spoiler]

IN CONCLUSION
I was disappointed in this book. I liked the narration and the mystery as intriguing, but I found myself frustrated by the romance and the MC’s decisions. This was also more thriller than mystery which is fine but not really my cup of tea. The book does end on a pretty good cliffhanger and I am curious about what is going to happen next, but I do not really want to read more in the series. I do have another book from Anna Carey on my TBR, This Is Not the Jess Show, and I do still intend on reading that.

I hereby give this book
2.5 Stars
Meaning: I almost liked it, but not quite

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