4.5 stars for Mockingbird (Miriam Black book 2) by Chuck Wendig.
I start out on Mockingbird almost immediately after finishing book 1 Blackbirds. At that time, I did not think of myself enjoying book 2 more than book 1 since it is a dark urban fantasy with a lot of violence and brutality. But boy, am I wrong!
At the end of book 1, we know that Miriam has unlocked the secret, the one special exception to her psychic ability. As it is, there is no free lunch in Miriam's world, and she pays a price, that being the cost of her interference to change the outcome in her visions of death.
Mockingbird kicks off with Miriam's attempt to live a normal life working as a check-out cashier wearing gloves, gloves that Louis buys for her and insists she wears. Following a run-in with the store manager, Miriam gives in to her true self, dumps the gloves and unleashes the lingering promise of death - a feeling she misses in the past year - to witness the last moments of the lucky ones whom she makes skin-to-skin contact with.
An unexpected turn of events leads Miriam to a school that takes in troubled girls, girls with disorders such as bipolar disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, depression and anxiety. What Miriam sees in her visions upon touching some of the girls there deeply disturbed her. It is so unnerving that it spurs her on a mission with the mantra "She is who she is", and she has work to do.
Though Mockingbird continues to be a dark fantasy in Miriam Black's urban world, there are touches of humor amd wit sprinkled like fairy dust throughout the book. I find myself liking Miriam more and more as the story unfolds to reveal more shocking details. In my opinion, the author has brilliantly created a female protagonist who may not be prim and proper girl next door, curses and swears at every opportune moment available, but is definitely one with a heart of gold.
I like the irony setting the author cleverly carves out for Miriam in that she can find out how and when anybody is going to expire but yet her own doom remains a mystery always; a mystery that eats into her day by day. Most of all, I love the way the story twists and turns and fills me with lots of heart-stopping thrills as Miriam races against time to redirect fate.
All in all, a notably dark and gritty read that makes me feel as if I am riding shotgun with Miriam. Her mission becomes my mission. I am who I am.
Publisher: Saga Press
Publication date: 5 May 2015
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Miriam is trying. Really, she is.
But this whole "settling down thing" that Louis has going for her just isn't working out. She lives on Long Beach Island all year around. Her home is a run-down double-wide trailer. She works at a grocery store as a check-out girl. And her relationship with Louis--who's on the road half the time in his truck--is subject to the piss and vinegar Miriam brings to everything she does.
It just isn't going well. Still, she's keeping her psychic ability--to see when and how someone is going to die just by touching them--in check. But even that feels wrong somehow. Like she's keeping a tornado stoppered up in a tiny bottle.
Then comes one bad day that turns it all on her ear.
*Blurb from Goodreads*
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