Book Review: Blackbird by Anna Carey

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Blackbird
Blackbird Duology #1
Author: Anna Carey
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Mystery
Released: September 16th 2014
Review Source: HarperTeen

This twisty, breathless cat-and-mouse thrill ride, told in the second person, follows a girl with amnesia in present-day Los Angeles who is being pursued by mysterious and terrifying assailants.

A girl wakes up on the train tracks, a subway car barreling down on her. With only minutes to react, she hunches down and the train speeds over her. She doesn’t remember her name, where she is, or how she got there. She has a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist of a blackbird inside a box, letters and numbers printed just below: FNV02198. There is only one thing she knows for sure: people are trying to kill her.

On the run for her life, she tries to untangle who she is and what happened to the girl she used to be. Nothing and no one are what they appear to be. But the truth is more disturbing than she ever imagined.

The Maze Runner series meets Code Name Verity, Blackbird is relentless and action-packed, filled with surprising twists.

Blackbird was a very interesting read. From the very beginning of the book, you come to learn the main character, “Sunny”, has no clue of whom or what she is. As the pages are turned, the mystery boils up as she tries hard to learn from her past.

How scary would it be to wake up in the middle of the day on train tracks while the train hunks at you to move out of the way? Not the best wake up method in my opinion, but this is how our main character is introduced. This unknown girl is lying there, on the tracks, struggling to get up. Within few minutes of being rescued, “Sunny’ finds a note saying not to contact the police. But… why? What have she done? Why can she not remember the past? This is what Blackbird is all about. Becoming “Sunny” and trying to put the puzzle together.

I must admit I had a hard time getting into Blackbird, becoming Sunny was hard due to the writing style. I believe if it was Sunny’s point of view only, then maybe I would’ve enjoyed it more and becoming her would’ve been a lot easier? But once you get used to the style, Blackbird becomes interesting. It becomes like The Bourne Identity, only that Sunny is something else. Sunny’s identity is revealed at the very last pages of the book. Throughout the book, you keep thinking and putting things together.

Blackbird is fast paced, here and there you get some clues and if you put the puzzle correctly then at the end you would come up with the right picture. Another thing to keep in mind is that Blackbird is part of a duology series, thus, leaving you with a cliffhanger. So if you’re in search of a good thriller novel, then Blackbird is the go to novel.