"Blackbird" Is A Story That Doesn't Quite Have What It Needs To Fly

Blackbird (Blackbird, #1) Title:  Blackbird
Author:  Anna Carey
Format:  ERC
Length:  256 pages
Publisher:  Harper TEEN
Rating:  2.5 Stars
 
This twisty, breathless cat-and-mouse thrill ride, told in the second person, follows a girl with amnesia in present-day Los Angeles who is being pursued by mysterious and terrifying assailants.

A girl wakes up on the train tracks, a subway car barreling down on her. With only minutes to react, she hunches down and the train speeds over her. She doesn’t remember her name, where she is, or how she got there. She has a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist of a blackbird inside a box, letters and numbers printed just below: FNV02198. There is only one thing she knows for sure: people are trying to kill her.

On the run for her life, she tries to untangle who she is and what happened to the girl she used to be. Nothing and no one are what they appear to be. But the truth is more disturbing than she ever imagined.

The Maze Runner series meets Code Name Verity, Blackbird is relentless and action-packed, filled with surprising twists.


My Thoughts
Anna Carey's Blackbird is a book that it is best to read with an open mind.  I say this because you will need all the free mental faculties you can spare to try to figure out what is going on at any given point during this read.

Making matters more complicated, is the fact that the story is written in second person.  This style of writing has a tendency to male one feel as if they are being told a story...rather than experiencing the goings on with the character.  Therefore, there is no chance for reader and in this case (a very otherwise sympathetic and harried teen amnesiac) to establish that all important "I love you sooo much" bond that keeps the pages turning.

Taking us yet further into 'wtf land' is the seeming never ending list of insurmountable obstacles that our already uberly challenged heroine must face.

1.  She has no idea who she is.
2.  Someone wants her dead
3. She has no idea why they want her dead.
4.  She is being framed
5.  She falls in love.
6.  Her love interest isn't on the right side of the law himself.

I could go on!!!!!
  
Needless to say that there is just way too much going on, too fast, and in to short of a time frame.

But wait...
There are some bright spots that manage to make their way through the fog of this read.
 Ben
The savior/love interest for our heroine (Sunny).
He is the saving grace of this read.  He is relatable, flawed, real, and written in third person.

The writing.
Though second person is not a style of writing that sits well on the palate of most readers.  The story is NOT badly written.
 
Though I really respect what author Carey is trying to do here; it is very clear that what this book was intended to be and what it is...are two ships that shall forever pass in the night.  




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