Is there such thing as too much of a good thing? Maybe? Yeah. I remember an economics class in college that tried to teach me something about this. Was it the law of diminishing returns? Where if you really want apple pie and buy a whole pie … you’ll never love any slice of that pie as much as the very first slice. I’m not entirely sure what that has to do with economics. The class kind of lost my attention after they mentioned pie. And what was I here to write about? I know it wasn’t pie …
Oh yeah, Miriam Black. Mockingbird, the second book in the Miriam Black series by Chuck Wendig. I absolutely adored Miriam in the first book, Blackbirds. She was such a different character from any I’ve ever read. True to herself, defiant, rough around the edges, 100% Miriam Black. I was excited to catch up with Miriam again in Mockingbird. She remained totally Miriam. But she was stuck in a situation she didn’t want to be in. Her free-form self was being squashed into a box that she didn’t quite fit in. Louis wanted her to conform to what most of the world considers “normal.” Miriam conforms for nobody.
Now, let’s discuss Louis. I see Louis as this big snuggly soft teddy bear who serves as the calm to Miriam’s chaos. I adore Louis. He does his share of calming and being pushed away by Miriam in Mockingbird. But he remains a steady presence throughout the book, which made me happy.
The story itself was good, until it wasn’t. I’m intentionally not mentioning anything about the plot of the story. I can’t find a good way to do that without spoiling things. I will say that there were laugh out loud points and things that made me squeamish. It started strong. But then it reached a point where Miriam was questioning everything. I thought I might have figured it out, but I didn’t want to be right. Well, I was right. And then I lost interest in the story. Miriam’s character didn’t even save it for me. Louis pulled me back in here and there, but I was pretty much checked out of the book by then. I finished it. I had to. I’m a completist. And being a completist, I hope to finish the series as well. But I’ll need a bit of a break before I read the third book.
I’m giving Mockingbird three out of five feathered stars. It wasn’t horrible. But the ending left me wanting a completely different story.
Mysteries and Mayhem 