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stuckinafictionaluniverse's review against another edition
3.0
3.5
Quick rundown of my thoughts:
This book is about spirit photography, San Diego, 1918, war, the Spanish influenza and the fear it spread, loss and longing.
My favorite thing about the book is how Cat Winters combines a real historical event with a paranormal element with such grace. This is a very well-written novel, with a setting that draws the reader in as it comes to life. I could see it all very clearly. From the fear and utter shock on the passengers' faces when someone sneezes on a train while a flu takes many lives everyday, to the grief and devastation the main character feels after losing her best friend and lover.
The story messes with your head and the mystery is not what you expect.
Our narrator Mary Shelley Black is a very intelligent and honest heroine. People quickly dismiss her because she is a smart female in the early 20th century. She’s sensitive and a good listener, and I think she was a very sympathetic person. The side characters were okay, if a little underdeveloped.
The plot was unique and fascinating, but on the slow side and couldn’t keep me interested the whole way through. It all concluded in a clever way, yet left me feeling wanting more. I will read more from Winters when I need some quality historical fiction!
Quick rundown of my thoughts:
This book is about spirit photography, San Diego, 1918, war, the Spanish influenza and the fear it spread, loss and longing.
My favorite thing about the book is how Cat Winters combines a real historical event with a paranormal element with such grace. This is a very well-written novel, with a setting that draws the reader in as it comes to life. I could see it all very clearly. From the fear and utter shock on the passengers' faces when someone sneezes on a train while a flu takes many lives everyday, to the grief and devastation the main character feels after losing her best friend and lover.
The story messes with your head and the mystery is not what you expect.
Our narrator Mary Shelley Black is a very intelligent and honest heroine. People quickly dismiss her because she is a smart female in the early 20th century. She’s sensitive and a good listener, and I think she was a very sympathetic person. The side characters were okay, if a little underdeveloped.
The plot was unique and fascinating, but on the slow side and couldn’t keep me interested the whole way through. It all concluded in a clever way, yet left me feeling wanting more. I will read more from Winters when I need some quality historical fiction!
reverie_reads_everything's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
amethystarchild's review against another edition
5.0
“In the Shadow of Blackbirds” is a Morris Debut Novel Award Finalist for young adult fiction. The novel is the story of Mary Shelley Black a teenage girl living with her Aunt during the First World War in San Diego. There is a major influenza epidemic in the city, deaths keep increasing and telegrams continue to come as sons die miles away in European trenches. All this loss and sorrow has enlivened the spiritualist community and everyone is desperate to get in contact with their dead loved ones once again. Mary Shelley has a scientific mind and has no tolerance for hoaxes and faked ghost photographs, yet when she suffers a near death experience and starts to hear the ghostly voice of Stephen, the boy she loves, she can’t help but be drawn into the spiritualist world she so despises. She must find out the mystery behind Stephens death, in a world turned upside down by war, sickness, and fear. A world under the shadow of blackbirds.
Content Warnings:
• Occasional mild swears
• Some use of opium is present, but not described
• Passionate kissing
• Violence is somewhat present, most graphic content comes from the description of war-time conditions
• Possible Triggering Subjects: WAR, war wounds, death, death by illness, PTSD/Shell-shock, Ghosts and paranormal activity, torture
I was a bit wary when started this book, I was worried it would bog itself down with paranormal romance tropes but my fears were all dispelled as I kept reading. The romance aspect is touching and complex, and I loved that it had a happy ending with a touch of sadness. The setting is interesting and not one I’m really familiar with, having the flu always hanging over the characters added great tension to the story. I enjoyed the main character Mary Shelley and loved how realistic and genuine she was, and the supporting characters were all complex and interesting to read as well. The twists and reveals that the book threw out genuinely surprised me at times! I love not always being able to predict what is going to happen next in a book. The book looked at difficult themes like the purpose of war, PTSD, and patriotism, and I really appreciated that it wasn’t afraid to get nitty-gritty with history. The mystery and heart of “Under the Shadow of Blackbirds” kept me up way past my bedtime and left me feeling fulfilled as reader like I haven’t felt in a while.
Content Warnings:
• Occasional mild swears
• Some use of opium is present, but not described
• Passionate kissing
• Violence is somewhat present, most graphic content comes from the description of war-time conditions
• Possible Triggering Subjects: WAR, war wounds, death, death by illness, PTSD/Shell-shock, Ghosts and paranormal activity, torture
I was a bit wary when started this book, I was worried it would bog itself down with paranormal romance tropes but my fears were all dispelled as I kept reading. The romance aspect is touching and complex, and I loved that it had a happy ending with a touch of sadness. The setting is interesting and not one I’m really familiar with, having the flu always hanging over the characters added great tension to the story. I enjoyed the main character Mary Shelley and loved how realistic and genuine she was, and the supporting characters were all complex and interesting to read as well. The twists and reveals that the book threw out genuinely surprised me at times! I love not always being able to predict what is going to happen next in a book. The book looked at difficult themes like the purpose of war, PTSD, and patriotism, and I really appreciated that it wasn’t afraid to get nitty-gritty with history. The mystery and heart of “Under the Shadow of Blackbirds” kept me up way past my bedtime and left me feeling fulfilled as reader like I haven’t felt in a while.
halynah's review against another edition
5.0
ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT IN EVERY POSSIBLE ASPECT!!!
Amazing style of writing - check
Colourful characters - check
Gripping plot - check
Hauntingly beautiful romance - check
Perfect descriptions - check
Superb portrayal of the epoch - check
Gorgeous cover and design - check
I guess there is no need in additional arguments, that this book is a must-read. Don't hesitate to read it, if you are not the fan of that historical period - I'm not either, and still I devoured the book gladly. I loved the idea with anagrams and blackbirds. The only disappointment was, that the author didn't let us know the fate of Jones (the boy from the Red Cross Hospital) - whether he survived or not.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Amazing style of writing - check
Colourful characters - check
Gripping plot - check
Hauntingly beautiful romance - check
Perfect descriptions - check
Superb portrayal of the epoch - check
Gorgeous cover and design - check
I guess there is no need in additional arguments, that this book is a must-read. Don't hesitate to read it, if you are not the fan of that historical period - I'm not either, and still I devoured the book gladly. I loved the idea with anagrams and blackbirds. The only disappointment was, that the author didn't let us know the fate of Jones (the boy from the Red Cross Hospital) - whether he survived or not.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
rjdenney's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed this one, though it dragged a bit. I thought it was creepy and made the hairs on my neck stand. I'd recommend this one if you want something spooky. :)
melzreads's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing book! Each chapter kept me enthralled and I could not get enough of this book. If you like historical with a creepy supernatural element, this is the book for you. They need to make a movie out of this.
mehsi's review against another edition
5.0
I really was looking forward to the book. Photographs (old ones), a great story. Was everything there as I had hoped? Yes, and even more than that!
Though ok, I expected more photographs. But story? The plot? The characters? They were all great.
I really loved our main character. She was sweet, determined and smart (something not everyone was happy with).
This was quite a sad book at times. We are in the WWI period, young men being send of to Germany, and on top of that we have the Spanish Flu killing people.
The book was really good and I would recommend it to everyone. :)
Though ok, I expected more photographs. But story? The plot? The characters? They were all great.
I really loved our main character. She was sweet, determined and smart (something not everyone was happy with).
This was quite a sad book at times. We are in the WWI period, young men being send of to Germany, and on top of that we have the Spanish Flu killing people.
The book was really good and I would recommend it to everyone. :)
jimmyjamesnickels's review against another edition
3.0
Every so often, you run across a book with a premise or setting or hook that's so clever, it makes you wonder why it took so long for someone to come up with the idea. If you like books with a clever premise, it may be worth your time to check out In the Shadow of Blackbird. Don't let the mushmouth awkward title scare you off, while it is not a particular strong or smart entry into the realm of paranormal romance YA, it does deserve an entry in the solid "not bad" category.
Set near the end of World War One during the height of the Spanish Influenza epidemic, ItSoB is a tale of the sadness and confusion of a culture chaotically adrift in a time of omnipresent death, with heavy atmospheric paranormal shenanigans afoot. Author Cat Winters shows how the world was on the precipice of change at that time in our history, as science and technology labored to bring about a more enlightened age but changed things seemingly for the worse as it pertained to mass death and destruction on the battlefield and left the population helpless to the scourge of the plague and reliant on old wives' tale home remedies to cure the sufferers of the flu. As both the war and influenza plague raged on and the death toll reaches astronomic levels, people sought comfort by turning to spirit photography and mediumship in an effort to prove existence of an afterlife.
Pardon me for sounding grim, but all in all this is very cool stuff to read about.
So the question is, does this book deliver on all this promise? The answer is delivered lukewarm, with a wrinkling of the forehead and a shrug. Meh, Kinda?
I'm no book snob, I read for funzies so I'm not at all above picking up a YA book and accepting it on YA book standard terms. It seems to me, when it comes to YA paranormal themed fiction, there are two types: The first is more or less a PG-13 book which tones down the sex, violence and cussing. The second is one that confuses "Young adults" with "Stupid kids". The former doesn't cut corners or rely on heavy cliches, the latter tends to be pretty lazy and unpolished. And ItSoB is teetering right on the friggen line between good and bad YA.
There's good and bad in this book, in more or less equal measures. The bad? The biggest hurdle for me was the fact I could not stand the protagonist, Mary Shelly. Not only is Mary Shelly is tooth hurtingly spunky and ridiculously anachronistic, she's basically a lazy amalgam of cheap tropes. Her mom is dead and her dad is arrested, how very convenient as she's the ward of her onion obsessed widowed aunt and therefore allowed to run amok without supervision during an era I'm pretty darned sure young unmarried girls were penned up like veal calfs. Also, she's not like those lame girlie girls! She likes SCIENCE! And ELECTRICITY! And SCIENCE did I mention the SCIENCE? But she's still angelically beautiful, effortlessly so. Of course.
Here we confused strong female characters with an anti-woman, mouthy and unlikable brat. And naturally, upon meeting Mary Shelly every single male character comments on her beauty. Every single male marvels at how she isn't like other girls as they fall in love with her big blue eyes. Of course they do. Look, there's nothing wrong with having a legitimately strong and intelligent female protagonist, just don't give me this Female Misogynist bullshit.
So. Did not like the main. This is a problem. However, Mary Shelly was not all bad. There actually was some character arc and growth throughout the story (again, tempered with the addendum of 'kinda sorta'). And I can admit that I'm being harsh because while I found her obnoxious, she's obnoxious in a realistic and dare I say understandable way given her circumstances.
I also found the writing overly simplistic and repetitive. How many times does there need to be mention of Mary Shelly's Boy Scout boots or her aunt's obsession with onions be mentioned? In regards to the onion thing, onions were apparently a folk remedy to prevent or cure a patient from the flu. If the aunt character makes an appearance, she is usually flipping the eff out about onions. It gets real old, real fast.
However, in regards to the aunt and her onions this is a negative that could very easily have been a positive. I think it was interesting to see how completely helpless the population was in the face of this terrible sickness, reliant entirely on home remedies. It was a sad and scary time to be alive. There were no miracle drugs or antibiotics and hospitals were for the dying so why not show more home remedies aside from onions and garlic?
Also, in a weird, sideways sort of way, Mary Shelly's melodramatics and pompous airs actually kind of work because she *is* acting like your average pompous, melodramatic teenage kid set in extraordinary circumstances way beyond her control. Her constant harping about her specialness as a not like those girls girl is tempered by her near obsession with her clothes and coiffure; this child doesn't leave the house without being 100% sure we know what she's wearing. She is in derpy lurve with a boy and devotes much of her brain space to this deep, abiding super special love. She's a kid, is what I'm saying, and I admit that once I was able to get over the parts of the character which I found grating, I could admit Mary Shelly was grating and obnoxious in a rather authentic way.
So she bugged me, but in the end it was okay.
The world building, in the sense of the world out of control/gone mad due to the war and influenza, is pretty decent. You get a feel for the sense of helplessness and anger of the people, in reading it is hard to imagine being in a situation like this. If you're in the Western world, it is difficult to wrap your head around the idea of thousands of people getting sick and then quickly dropping dead in major cities. ItSoB is, at its core, a sad book. It's the story of a girl coming of age in a time of overwhelming loss and sadness, and the struggle to try and deal with death on this scale is a massive undertaking.
The paranormal elements of the book were...odd. I am avoiding discussion of the "big" plot itself, because revealing Mary Shelly's impetuous is in and of itself, a spoiler. To careful explain the main plot, there's a synopsis behind the cut which contains minor spoilers, but no major points.
Like the home remedy onions, I feel the sections of the book dealing with spiritual photography, seances and general communing with the dead really should have been dealt with more firmly, fleshed out a bit more. Again, it kinda sorta works because we're viewing things through the eyes of a self important sixteen year old twit, but all the same ItSoB was in no way all encompassing or engrossing when it came to what is ostensibly its primary subject matter.
This book is not quite worth the sum of its parts. The premise is great, the different elements within in regards to the war and the ghosty stuff and the plague...those are stellar. But I really don't feel it ever delivers on the promise fully. The big, heavy ideas and circumstances really do seem to outweigh the actual out put of the book. When I finished it, I was more disappointed with what could have been.
Set near the end of World War One during the height of the Spanish Influenza epidemic, ItSoB is a tale of the sadness and confusion of a culture chaotically adrift in a time of omnipresent death, with heavy atmospheric paranormal shenanigans afoot. Author Cat Winters shows how the world was on the precipice of change at that time in our history, as science and technology labored to bring about a more enlightened age but changed things seemingly for the worse as it pertained to mass death and destruction on the battlefield and left the population helpless to the scourge of the plague and reliant on old wives' tale home remedies to cure the sufferers of the flu. As both the war and influenza plague raged on and the death toll reaches astronomic levels, people sought comfort by turning to spirit photography and mediumship in an effort to prove existence of an afterlife.
Pardon me for sounding grim, but all in all this is very cool stuff to read about.
So the question is, does this book deliver on all this promise? The answer is delivered lukewarm, with a wrinkling of the forehead and a shrug. Meh, Kinda?
I'm no book snob, I read for funzies so I'm not at all above picking up a YA book and accepting it on YA book standard terms. It seems to me, when it comes to YA paranormal themed fiction, there are two types: The first is more or less a PG-13 book which tones down the sex, violence and cussing. The second is one that confuses "Young adults" with "Stupid kids". The former doesn't cut corners or rely on heavy cliches, the latter tends to be pretty lazy and unpolished. And ItSoB is teetering right on the friggen line between good and bad YA.
There's good and bad in this book, in more or less equal measures. The bad? The biggest hurdle for me was the fact I could not stand the protagonist, Mary Shelly. Not only is Mary Shelly is tooth hurtingly spunky and ridiculously anachronistic, she's basically a lazy amalgam of cheap tropes. Her mom is dead and her dad is arrested, how very convenient as she's the ward of her onion obsessed widowed aunt and therefore allowed to run amok without supervision during an era I'm pretty darned sure young unmarried girls were penned up like veal calfs. Also, she's not like those lame girlie girls! She likes SCIENCE! And ELECTRICITY! And SCIENCE did I mention the SCIENCE? But she's still angelically beautiful, effortlessly so. Of course.
Here we confused strong female characters with an anti-woman, mouthy and unlikable brat. And naturally, upon meeting Mary Shelly every single male character comments on her beauty. Every single male marvels at how she isn't like other girls as they fall in love with her big blue eyes. Of course they do. Look, there's nothing wrong with having a legitimately strong and intelligent female protagonist, just don't give me this Female Misogynist bullshit.
So. Did not like the main. This is a problem. However, Mary Shelly was not all bad. There actually was some character arc and growth throughout the story (again, tempered with the addendum of 'kinda sorta'). And I can admit that I'm being harsh because while I found her obnoxious, she's obnoxious in a realistic and dare I say understandable way given her circumstances.
I also found the writing overly simplistic and repetitive. How many times does there need to be mention of Mary Shelly's Boy Scout boots or her aunt's obsession with onions be mentioned? In regards to the onion thing, onions were apparently a folk remedy to prevent or cure a patient from the flu. If the aunt character makes an appearance, she is usually flipping the eff out about onions. It gets real old, real fast.
However, in regards to the aunt and her onions this is a negative that could very easily have been a positive. I think it was interesting to see how completely helpless the population was in the face of this terrible sickness, reliant entirely on home remedies. It was a sad and scary time to be alive. There were no miracle drugs or antibiotics and hospitals were for the dying so why not show more home remedies aside from onions and garlic?
Also, in a weird, sideways sort of way, Mary Shelly's melodramatics and pompous airs actually kind of work because she *is* acting like your average pompous, melodramatic teenage kid set in extraordinary circumstances way beyond her control. Her constant harping about her specialness as a not like those girls girl is tempered by her near obsession with her clothes and coiffure; this child doesn't leave the house without being 100% sure we know what she's wearing. She is in derpy lurve with a boy and devotes much of her brain space to this deep, abiding super special love. She's a kid, is what I'm saying, and I admit that once I was able to get over the parts of the character which I found grating, I could admit Mary Shelly was grating and obnoxious in a rather authentic way.
So she bugged me, but in the end it was okay.
The world building, in the sense of the world out of control/gone mad due to the war and influenza, is pretty decent. You get a feel for the sense of helplessness and anger of the people, in reading it is hard to imagine being in a situation like this. If you're in the Western world, it is difficult to wrap your head around the idea of thousands of people getting sick and then quickly dropping dead in major cities. ItSoB is, at its core, a sad book. It's the story of a girl coming of age in a time of overwhelming loss and sadness, and the struggle to try and deal with death on this scale is a massive undertaking.
The paranormal elements of the book were...odd. I am avoiding discussion of the "big" plot itself, because revealing Mary Shelly's impetuous is in and of itself, a spoiler. To careful explain the main plot, there's a synopsis behind the cut which contains minor spoilers, but no major points
Spoiler
Mary Shelly gains peculiar supernatural slash mediumship abilities after being struck by lightening, which give her the ability to taste negative emotions (Yeah, IDK) as well as communicate with *a* spirit. Not spiritS, no just the one. Like I said, they're peculiar abilities. Anyway, once she gains these abilities, she is repeatedly visited by this spirit and takes it upon herself to help the spirit find peace. As Mary Shelly had been a noisy skeptic up to this point, she has a great internal struggle to believe what is happening to her and attempts to unravel the mystery using a mixture of scientific based research as well as spirit photography and seances.Like the home remedy onions, I feel the sections of the book dealing with spiritual photography, seances and general communing with the dead really should have been dealt with more firmly, fleshed out a bit more. Again, it kinda sorta works because we're viewing things through the eyes of a self important sixteen year old twit, but all the same ItSoB was in no way all encompassing or engrossing when it came to what is ostensibly its primary subject matter.
This book is not quite worth the sum of its parts. The premise is great, the different elements within in regards to the war and the ghosty stuff and the plague...those are stellar. But I really don't feel it ever delivers on the promise fully. The big, heavy ideas and circumstances really do seem to outweigh the actual out put of the book. When I finished it, I was more disappointed with what could have been.