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jess_stetson 's review for:
Blackbird
by Michael Fiegel
"Humanity is a vestigial tail on the ass-end of the universe, wasteful and shitty."
Let's be honest, with astute observations like that, this book was kind of written for me. I took a shot because it's the story of a sociopathic killer and his young (kidnapped) protégé. (Leon, The Professional, anyone?) I assumed that it might be super derivative but went for it anyway. What can I say? Sociopaths speak to me.
The good news is that it was better than expected. The story unfolds from both his (alias: Edison, the cold-blooded, chaos making, domestic terrorist/government distraction for hire) and her (Christian /alias: Xtian, the young, kidnapped up and coming psycho) perspectives. It switches between the two so we kind of get both sides of the story. But there isn't toooo much of a story beyond the heartless psycho and the troubled young killer in training. Despite this, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I got a kick out of Edison's ruminations on the world and politics. I liked Xtian and rooted for her.
Where it let me down most, I think, was the lack of explanation for just about every choice they made. Even heartless cunts have some sort of motivation for their actions and it felt like the author didn't know his characters well enough to speak to those. In fact, he made a point of trying to address this void by saying things akin to 'even they didn't know why they...' but that felt like a big cop out to me.
In the end, though, that didn't kill it for me and I really did enjoy it. Especially as I agree with most of Edison's observations. Mostly, though, I could see this being easily adapted into a movie ala Leon or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
This should actually be 3.5 as I was absolutely torn between 3 and 4 stars.
Let's be honest, with astute observations like that, this book was kind of written for me. I took a shot because it's the story of a sociopathic killer and his young (kidnapped) protégé. (Leon, The Professional, anyone?) I assumed that it might be super derivative but went for it anyway. What can I say? Sociopaths speak to me.
The good news is that it was better than expected. The story unfolds from both his (alias: Edison, the cold-blooded, chaos making, domestic terrorist/government distraction for hire) and her (Christian /alias: Xtian, the young, kidnapped up and coming psycho) perspectives. It switches between the two so we kind of get both sides of the story. But there isn't toooo much of a story beyond the heartless psycho and the troubled young killer in training. Despite this, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I got a kick out of Edison's ruminations on the world and politics. I liked Xtian and rooted for her.
Where it let me down most, I think, was the lack of explanation for just about every choice they made. Even heartless cunts have some sort of motivation for their actions and it felt like the author didn't know his characters well enough to speak to those. In fact, he made a point of trying to address this void by saying things akin to 'even they didn't know why they...' but that felt like a big cop out to me.
In the end, though, that didn't kill it for me and I really did enjoy it. Especially as I agree with most of Edison's observations. Mostly, though, I could see this being easily adapted into a movie ala Leon or Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
This should actually be 3.5 as I was absolutely torn between 3 and 4 stars.