Book Review: Blackbirds

Title: Blackbirds
Author: Chuck Wendig
Rating: 2/5 Stars
Series: Miriam Black (Book 1)

I think I'm just on a disappointing-book reading spree right now. I saw this book on the "new arrivals" shelf that I have begun stalking at my library, and I thought that it looked like an awesome series. Protagonist with the ability to tell when people are going to die? It sounded like a nice action/thriller, and then I read it and it... wasn't.

First things first, Miriam was one of the most irritating protagonists that I have read in a long time. I understand the angle that Wendig was going for, but it just seemed extremely overdone, like he was intentionally trying to make her the most irritating, irrational, annoying character that he possibly could. And I'm not sure that he meant her character to be like that. Also, her entire character can be summed up in like 5 words, which is really frustrating. When I talk about a character I want to be able to go into an in-depth analysis of their personality and not just be like "yeah she smokes and cusses and..." because I've just summarized 40% of her personality.

Also this book is just really gross. Like really gross. I don't normally have a problem with descriptions that other people cannot handle but this was way over the top. Just reading it made me feel ill. There were brains getting blown everywhere, people getting shoved down garbage disposals, knives going through eyes, it was just disgusting. And there were other details about more... romantic... things that were just yuck as well. Seriously, I don't want to read about that.

And linear plot that makes sense? Nonexistent. It was like jumping around on a trampoline half the time, I couldn't tell what the heck was going on. One second we are in X location, the next we are some random place that I don't know. And names. I am so bad with names but Wendig kept throwing names out there that I was supposed to know but didn't.

LIKES:
+ The snippets where we get to find out how people will die were actually pretty interesting and, in my opinion, some of the better-written parts of the book. They were still pretty gruesome and over-the-top, but at least they weren't pogo-sticking all over the place.
+ There were certainly plenty of plot twists, and I was surprised by a ton of the twists and turns. In this way, the confusing plot actually helped with the suspense because I was so lost that I couldn't  predict anything.

DISLIKES:
- Miriam, because of all the reasons listed above
- Confusing plot that made no sense at all
- Miriam's relationships with other people, because she seemed to gravitate towards the people who would treat her horribly. And then when there was someone who would actually treat her in a decent manner she realized what a bad influence she would be, ran away, and changed nothing about her life.
- Gross details. Over-the-top gross details.
- Ending that made zero sense considering all the stuff that Miriam spews during the book about fate.

I just can't finish this series. I mean I could, but I would just be dragging myself through 3 more books of yuck, and I've decided by TBR is too big for that. I will, however, be trying Wendig's other book Zer0s, because maybe it's better?

See this review on Goodreads.