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A review by kaitrosereads
Blackwood by Gwenda Bond
4.0
I really wanted to like Blackwood. When I heard about it being picked up for a TV show I decided I should give it a shot since the story sounded so interesting. It was definitely interesting but I found it lacking in quite a few ways and I was just unimpressed with it.
The characters in this book are odd. Miranda and Phillips are both outcasts but that doesn’t make them friends. In fact, Phillips helped make Miranda the outcast that she is. Her family is said to be cursed and her dad is the town drunk. When things on Roanoke Island get really crazy though they have to band together to try and solve the mystery before it’s too late. It was an interesting concept and I liked that the characters were different than your typical protagonists but they were just a little too weird to relate to.
However, I did like that Miranda was a Vampire Diaries fan. I give her props for that. Other than that though she was just really standoffish and not very friendly. There were just a few too many things that I didn’t like about her. Same with Phillips. He was better than Miranda, in my opinion, but I just didn’t care for him. The characters were definitely not what kept me interested in this story.
I do have to applaud the actual story though. It was beyond unique. 114 people disappeared from Roanoke Island hundreds of years ago and no one knows what happened to them. Now it’s happened again and it has something to do with Miranda’s family and their curse. The mystery kept me guessing and it wasn’t an easy plot to figure out. I was fascinated by the mix of history and contemporary and that’s definitely why I actually enjoyed this book.
I don’t really have any praise for the writing but it wasn’t bad. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it however. It’s not something that really stuck with me after finishing the book. I would call it mediocre. The story was really the only thing not mediocre about Blackwood.
Overall, Blackwood was really just a book that hit right in the middle for me. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. If you’re a history buff and you don’t really care all that much about characters, I’d recommend this one. Maybe get it from your library though.
The characters in this book are odd. Miranda and Phillips are both outcasts but that doesn’t make them friends. In fact, Phillips helped make Miranda the outcast that she is. Her family is said to be cursed and her dad is the town drunk. When things on Roanoke Island get really crazy though they have to band together to try and solve the mystery before it’s too late. It was an interesting concept and I liked that the characters were different than your typical protagonists but they were just a little too weird to relate to.
However, I did like that Miranda was a Vampire Diaries fan. I give her props for that. Other than that though she was just really standoffish and not very friendly. There were just a few too many things that I didn’t like about her. Same with Phillips. He was better than Miranda, in my opinion, but I just didn’t care for him. The characters were definitely not what kept me interested in this story.
I do have to applaud the actual story though. It was beyond unique. 114 people disappeared from Roanoke Island hundreds of years ago and no one knows what happened to them. Now it’s happened again and it has something to do with Miranda’s family and their curse. The mystery kept me guessing and it wasn’t an easy plot to figure out. I was fascinated by the mix of history and contemporary and that’s definitely why I actually enjoyed this book.
I don’t really have any praise for the writing but it wasn’t bad. There wasn’t anything spectacular about it however. It’s not something that really stuck with me after finishing the book. I would call it mediocre. The story was really the only thing not mediocre about Blackwood.
Overall, Blackwood was really just a book that hit right in the middle for me. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it. If you’re a history buff and you don’t really care all that much about characters, I’d recommend this one. Maybe get it from your library though.