As seen on The Readventurer

2.5 stars

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, More...

A story featuring a main protagonist Femme fatale, I can see the future kind of gal.
She knows how you will die, when you will die year, day, hour and minute, but she does not know where it will take place exactly. The location is a mystery for her to solve.
She considers herself in this story as a hideous little no good-nik. She says she does horrible things and has horrible thoughts. Curses, drinks and smokes.
I reckon she still has heart and guts.
Change the course of fate can it be?
This dwindl More...

A few weeks ago, I came across an essay written by Neil Gaiman and titled "All Books Have Genders": the beginning of the essay touches upon the truth that, whether we (readers or writers) like it or not, most books can be defined as either girl books or boy books. What determines what a book's "gender" is? I'd say it's a mixture of things, particularly the main character, the mood of the story, the focus of the plot, and the narrative's voice. What does any of this have to do with the novel I'm More...

Here's the thing about Miriam Black. She's lurid, vile, bad-mouthed. She has an attitude problem, more than one. But I love her anyway. That's the real charm about Blackbirds, finding yourself liking somebody you quite frankly should hate. And that's the heroine of Blackbirds, the anti-heroine.

The writing is lovely, graphic and detailed. The plot-line had just enough excitement and just enough background. Including Miriam's life before with her mother really helps flesh out her character. She's More...

5 Stars

I received this incredibly fun read from Net Galley and F#ck ‘n A, Miriam is one cool ass, strong, brave and extremely foul mouthed piece of trash that captured my heart and my interest as she let her first explicits fly. This is a very cool book… it was my first Wendig novel, but surely will not be my last. I loved that Wendig holds no punches back. He writes with a gritty and raw flare, without pussy footing around being politically correct. Yes, he can be vulgar, the language is rough, More...

This review originally appeared on Clear Eyes, Full Shelves.

FNL Character Rating: Tyra during the Powderpuff football game when she stupendously goes all HAM on Lyla Garrity.

The only thing I truly know about my future is the inevitability of my death. Like everyone else, I’d prefer that the time and manner of my death be peaceful, painless...and postponed for as long as possible. But perhaps that’s not to be. I don’t know the future.

But what if we could know the future?

In the case of a fluid fut More...

Absolutely. Bloody. Brilliant. Deeply complex characters. Great plot, woven together with real skill and flair. A page turner. Couldn't put it down. Seriously impressed. Damaged people wear their scar tissue like armor, soft areas are a weakness not to be shown. Real violence is bloody and gruesome. Real women don't wait for 'heroes' to come to their rescue. Miriam Black is a real woman, scar tissued, foul-mouthed, highly-sexed (hey--what's wrong with that?), big appetite, burps, flaws and all. More...

2.5-2.75 stars


review before/while reading: readalong with jessie!

EXCITEMENT!

review after reading: EXCITEMENT!

but unfortunately, this excitement was of a drastically different sort than the first one. as in, OH MY GOD I'M SO GLAD I HAVE SUCH GREAT SKIMMING POWERS OR I'D HAVE NEVER GOTTEN THROUGH THIS BOOK! kind of excitement.

this book starts off wonderfully well. you have this broken-and-jaded-yet-filled-with-hilariously-witty--and-wry-quips main character and a great premise, and a general premo More...

I didn’t know what to expect from Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig. I stumbled upon his blog, liked the things he said there and that led me to download Blackbirds as my first Wendig read. Serendipity! I just wish it led me to Chuck Wendig sooner.

Blackbirds is a tragic tale of persistence and endurance for their own sake. Miriam's young age of twenty-two belies the old soul borne of her experiences. With every touch, she sees more than one lifetime’s worth of death in all its unedited reality. But sh More...

This review is also published at: http://nerdybookreviews.wordpress.com/

After seeing some very positive reviews I was determined to like this book, for the first quarter of the book I hated the language, the violence, but I stuck with it. I’m so glad I did because once I finished this book I really enjoyed it.

Miriam is one of the strongest female leads I’ve seen in a while. She stuck to her character traits. She was sarcastic, full of bad habits (smoking, drinking, swearing), didn’t care about More...

3.5*

This was a good urban fantasy with a decent plot and strong female protagonist.

The concept of the novel is an intriguing one where Miriam, our not-so-heroine, can see how a person dies when there is skin-to-skin contact. These death scenes are interesting to read and offer a various array, from natural causes and illnesses, to old age, murder and road accidents amongst many others. Also, seemingly, Miriam is unable to change the course of someone’s fate so instead leeches off those who are n More...

When you look at a cover for a book like Blackbirds you think you're going to get something in keeping with the ethereal image; but Chuck Wendig offers something else entirely-- and that's not a bad thing at all.

Miriam Black can see a person's death whenever she makes skin-to-skin contact: she knows the exact moment and circumstances and sees it all with disturbing clarity. Miriam has adapted to her strange life by becoming a scavenger of the dead. Knowing when someone will die alone doesn't pro More...

Miriam is a drifter with an unusual gift: when she touches someone skin to skin, she sees a brief vision of the circumstances of that person’s death. It could be decades into the future or later the same day. Some deaths are accidents, some are of old age. Regardless, the first time Miriam touches someone, she sees when and how that person will die.

She occasionally uses this gift (or curse?) to loot some cash from the recently or soon-to-be deceased, which allows her to stay in motels and keep a More...

I would hate to be Miriam Black.

When Miriam touches someone, skin on skin, she sees their death. Sometimes she sees it in a flash, if it's a quick one, and sometimes she sees several minutes of agony. All it takes is her skin touching someone else's, and she's done. She knows how they die.

Blackbirds, a rough, unflinching suspense tale from Chuck Wendig, introduces us to Miriam and the torture of knowing how people die, yet being powerless to stop it. Miriam tried, once, but her failure to save a More...

Engaging, visceral storytelling with frantic pacing and distinctive voice. Chuck Wendig already has my endless admiration for his posts on writing at terribleminds.com, which come thick and fast and loaded with just the right balance of charm and vinegar, but his fiction is just as entertaining. Miriam Black is a protagonist to be reckoned with and her journey through the book feels as relevatory for her as for the reader, which is exactly as it should be. Stylistically, the 3rd person present n More...

It's objectively impossible to read this book and not love (or love to hate) Miriam Black's character. And for that matter, all the characters in this book were hits - there were no usless "misses" or filler characters snuck in to cheat at advancing the plot. Speaking of plot, it was twisty and action-packed. The story was tightly constructed and driven by the dynamic nature of the characters, chiefly Miriam Black. I can't wait to see an encore performance of Miriam Black in Wendig's next work.

W More...

When Miriam Black touches someone, she sees how they will die. Most of the time, it's of natural causes and in old age. However, sometimes it's violent and very soon. Driven by a sense of shame and, frankly, finances, she crisscrosses the country in search of these soon-to-happen deaths. She stalks the nearly departed and, after they die, she robs the corpse. Not a pleasant career choice to be sure but, on the upside it keeps her in food and cigarettes. On the downside, though, she's not sure if More...

Review: http://io9.com/5910098/the-creepy-sex...

I read it for 20 minutes. I wasn't bored. This woman won't get a show on Disney any time soon.

page 120/358: Ok, I'm speeding along so I'll probably finish it. There's usually something smart and witty going on on every page. The content is pretty dark though. If you're a Stephen King fan you probably won't mind it. This is no hyped first novel. He actually has some ebooks about writing. The prose is sharp, unlike the clunky Wool which I was checkin More...

Blackbirds by Chunk Wendig was an interesting read. A GOOD interesting read. This book is dark and gritty and down right nasty. I wasn’t really expecting anything less that grotesque horror and that is what I got. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find some light humor sprinkled around the pages of this book. While it lifted the mood of the novel, the heaviness of the book still clung to me.

Not only is Mr. Wendig’s writing brilliantly gritty, but it’s raw and edgy, just as it should be. Mr. More...

I don’t usually read Urban Fantasy and I usually find it difficult to enjoy (I read the first book of the Dresden Files earlier this year and disliked it). I had no such problems with Blackbirds, so make of that what you will. The book begins by introducing the rough and gritty Miriam Black. Miriam has the ability to see exactly when and how you will die just by touching you. Cool huh? Not so for Miriam, who is tortured with the knowledge of the impending demise of strangers and is powerless to More...

This book is dark and mean as a snake. The story of a girl who can, by mere touch, see her subject's future death in its entirety, is positively riveting on a visceral level. She meets a trucker, a nice man, definitely not her type... but when she shakes his hand, she knows that he will die because of her and her name will be the last thing he says. The characters are no more than silhouettes but those shadows have substance and come to life. Chuck Wendig tells a gritty and cruel tale, leaving y More...

I feel like four stars is a little high a rating, but three stars is too low, so I'm rounding up.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? Probably nothing, so I'll say this. I feel like the book could stand to lose a bit of the profanity and still maintain she same atmosphere. I don't normally have anything against profanity, but there were moments when it felt a bit gratuitous. The same could be said for the violence. I get why it was there, but it also felt a bit gratuitous at times and t More...

After having followed author Chuck Wendig on Twitter and read his Terrible Minds blog for probably the last year or so, I knew what I was getting into with Blackbirds. Or at least, I thought I did. But while the text was as edgy and intense as I expected, it's still worth noting that Wendig's greatest weapon is his command of language and his expert ability to craft a rough, gritty, disgusting scene. Reading Blackbirds is like hanging out in the back room of a dirty bar, tied to a chair, some pi More...

4.5/5

Questo romanzo mi è decisamente piaciuto, forse non contiene elementi particolarmente nuovi ma lo stile è avvincente.
Lo scrittore ha optato per una protagonista femminile che sicuramente non ricalca la femminilità classica - anzi - ma che mi pare ben riuscita nei suoi eccessi; poi de gustibus, però io leggo sempre volentieri storie con personaggi simili a Miriam.
Come in altri libri dell'autore non si lesina sulla violenza, presente sia nella realtà che nelle visioni della protagonista.
Tra More...

If Joss Whedon and Chuck Palahniuk had a love child, she might be called Miriam Black. A foul-mouthed and totally kick-ass borderline sociopath, Miriam also sees the future . . . or at least one particular kind of future: your death. With a simple touch of her hand, she knows exactly when, where and how you're gonna snuff it, and it's mostly not very pretty.

Neither is her life. When we meet Miriam -- in a cheap hotel room, posing as a truck-stop hooker -- it's just another day for her. On the g More...

Would you want to know when, where and how you were going to die? No? Well, neither does Miriam Black, but that’s her lot in life.

If you know who Chuck Wendig is, then you know all about his colorful use of language. Blackbirds is awash in the foulest of foul obscenities, but I realized immediately this was not Wendig spouting off vulgarities–this was Miriam Black. Everything about her, from the way the she spoke to how she moved, was unique, harsh and real. You feel her pain but you also can’t More...

Miriam is a bad ass that doesn't take crap from anyone. She has a gift, though she thinks of it as a curse, which allows her to see how everyone will die just by touching them. All she needs is skin on skin contact and she will be able to see when and how someone dies. She is a wanderer, never sticking around in one place very long and never letting her guard down. Her life changes when she gets in a truck with a man named Louis. The brief touch of his hand lets her see that he will die in rough More...

Miriam Black can see when people are going to die. One touch, skin on skin, is all it takes to give her a vision of exactly when and how it’s going to happen. Several years of living with this curse have made her a caustic, jaded human being, and she’s only in her twenties. She has no job, but gets by looking for people who are going to die soon, stalking them, and taking their money when they kick the bucket. It’s enough for her to survive on, and she never gets close to anyone.

Then she hitches More...

My reactions to this book are as follows;













If you want to read a more coherent review, one can be found here. More...

I literally read this book front to back in about five hours. I could not put it down, much to the chagrin of my wife, children, and dogs. Definitely not for the faint of heart, but a great page-turning read non-the-less.

I'm not sure that I'd consider it urban fantasy. More of a paranormal thriller in line with works by Steven King and Dean Kootz....that's not to say that Chuck Wendig writes like them, for he has a voice and style all his own! Something like a strange but wonderful combination More...