Originally posted to I Should Read That

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.

First things first, if you’re expecting a supernatural link between the blackbirds falling from the sky and the missing Olivia, forget about it now.  Nothing in this book is supernatural, nothing in this book is fantasy.  I find it weird that it seems to be marketed that way because I think people will be disappointed when they are drawn in by that aspect of the plot and find out that it doesn’t really exist.  The story is compelling enough without the 5,000 blackbirds included in the copy or the story at all!  I would have made the choice to completely remove it, to be honest.

Now that the negative stuff is out of the way, I really enjoyed this book.  The story is told from the perspective of Alex, Olivia’s younger sister.  We learn what happens to Olivia through Alex’s eyes, feeling her conflicting, wide-ranging emotions all the way through. Alex worships her sister, despite the fact that they’re two very different people.  Alex is content with her life in Orkney, a remote set of islands off the coast of northernmost Scotland.  Olivia, on the other hand, is finishing up her time on the island and ready to move to London in a few months. Alex isn’t just dealing with her sister’s mysterious disappearance – she’s struggling with the fact that Olivia will probably never visit Orkney again.

I really liked Alex as a character, as frustrating as she could be.  But you know what, she’s a teenage girl dealing with one of the worst possible situations a person can find themselves in.  her emotions are raw and real, her grief is striking.  Her relationship with Detective Birkin, who is assigned to Oliva’s case, is unusual and believable.  As Alex’s family struggles to stay together, she finds other ways to project her feelings.  We get two or three chapters from Olivia’s perspective that keep the story interesting –it’s like we get a peak behind the curtains to see what’s really going on.

This is not a thriller, it’s not really a mystery.  It is a study of grief and how tragic events can push us apart or bring us together.  I really enjoyed this book, although it was a little slow in parts.  I enjoyed the fact that the emphasis was not on the investigation surrounding Olivia’s disappearance but on how it affected Olivia’s loved ones.  Alex is a reliable, but difficult narrator who is so believably human.