Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
Miriam hasn’t touched a person and seen a new death in months.  She’s settled down in Jersey with Louis, and part of the deal is no touching.  But her fingers are twitching for a vision, and quickly a regular afternoon turns into a horrifying one.  Still.  Louis suggests a way for her to use her gift for the good.  Prove to a hypochondria that she isn’t dying.  But this hypochondriac happens to work at a problem girls boarding school, and when Miriam touches one of the girls, all hell breaks loose.

Review:
I was so glad to jump back into Miriam’s gritty world that is so unique in urban fantasy, although at first I was surprised by how settled down she seemed to be.  Thankfully, that quickly changes, and a disturbing, rollicking plot comes into play.

What makes this series is the characterization of Miriam.  She is not a nice girl. And she’s not bad in some fake-ass way designed to appeal to a hormonal teenage boy.  She doesn’t run around in tight leather pants proclaiming her badness while batting her eyes and tossing her hair.  Miriam is dark and brutally honest.  She has a delightfully foul mouth.  She wears what she wants to wear whether or not people like it or it’s in fashion.  She doesn’t care if she’s attractive.  She can be bitingly mean.  But she still works as a heroine because she truly has a good heart and is willing to inconvenience her entire life to help other people.  Reading Miriam is deeply refreshing to me, as a woman reader.  She’s allowed to be precisely who she is without any restraints of gender norms by the author.  Here is just a sampling of Miriam’s voice in the book:

Home Again, Home Again, Fuckity-Fuck (location 259)

A tattoo is an expression of your inner self inked on your outer self. It’s some deeply spiritual shit. (location 2143)

The plot this time at first appears to be purely about who is killing young girls, but slowly it becomes apparent that we’re learning more about Fate or what I think of as the crazy birds that control Miriam’s life.  It appears that Fate is displeased that Miriam fucked with it by saving Louis, and now it’s out to get her.  Although this addresses some of the issues I had in the first book about how confusing Fate is and what exactly the rules for this universe are, I must admit, I still found a lot of the information revealed to be a bit fuzzy, albeit wonderfully creepy.  The fantasy information was better than in the first book, but it was still a bit too at arm’s length.  I don’t want to have to wait out the whole series to finally understand even one significant aspect of what is up with Miriam.

One plot issue to do with the murders bothered me.  Spoiler ahead!

*spoilers* I have a very hard time believing that after being fooled once by the killer who can imitate other people’s voices like a mockingbird that Miriam would fall for it a second time.  She’s smarter than that, and it felt like a very clunky plot device to me.  *end spoilers*

That said, the mystery was dark, gritty, and nail-biting.  A lot happened, and Miriam’s story definitely moved forward.  There is a self-contained mystery within this book, but the overarching plot got more traction as well.

The writing continues to be a mix of beautiful and grotesque that would keep me coming back even if the characterization of Miriam wasn’t so strong.  Wendig’s description powers are truly stellar.

Her mouth brimming with foulness the way a soup can bulges with botulism. (location 2460)

They invited her to move back home but she’s not going to do that, oh hell no, she’d much rather snap her tits in a bear-trap than go back to that hell. (location 1633)

She gets on her tippy-toes and kisses him. Long, slow, deep. The kind of kiss where you can feel little pieces of your soul trading places as mouths open and breath mingles. (location 3722)

How can you not read a book with writing like that?

Overall, fans of the first book in the Miriam Black series will not be disappointed by this entry.  Everything that made the first book unique in the urban fantasy genre has returned with strength, particularly the writing style and the characterization of Miriam.  The overarching plot moves forward at a pace fast enough to maintain interest, although not enough about the rules of the fantasy world is revealed.  The self-contained plot is gritty, dark, and sufficiently mysterious, although one moment detracts from it a bit.  Miriam and the writing more than make up for it, though.  Wendig fans will not be disappointed.

4 out of 5 stars

Source: Gift

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Previous Books in Series:
Blackbirds, review