Four and Twenty Blackbirds by Cherie Priest is a story that I really, really, really wanted to like. And I thought I did for awhile.
From Amazon:
The classic Southern gothic gets an edgy modern makeover in Priest’s debut novel about a young woman’s investigation into the truth of her origins. What Eden Moore digs up in the roots of her diseased family tree takes her across the South, from the ruins of the Pine Breeze sanitarium in Tennessee to a corpse-filled swamp in Florida, and back in time to the Civil War, when the taint in her family bloodline sets in motion events building only now to a supernatural crescendo. Priest adds little new to the gothic canon, but makes neo-goth chick Eden spunky enough to deal with a variety of cliché menaces—a scheming family matriarch, a brooding Poe-esque mansion and a genealogy greatly confused with inbreeding—that would have sent the genre’s traditional wilting violets into hysterics. Eden is a heroine for the aging Buffy crowd, and her adventures will play best to postadolescent horror fans.
I’ve been looking forward to this book because of both the title and the cover art. This is another entry from my Women of Fantasy book club. The cover art is a bit spooky, which I love and begs me to read. Also, in my own weird way, I’m obsessed with nursery rhymes. They all have secret meanings. I actually bought my mom a book on secret nursery rhyme meanings, which she asked for, but which I will probably get to first.
So, I dove into this story. I found out too late that the title has little to do with the actual story. Disappointing.
…beware, mild spoilers ahead!
I enjoyed the premise. Eden sees ghosts who try to protect her from him. Who is he? As Eden gets older, she discovers more and more about her history, which is very mysterious, of course, and she discovers who he is.
I liked Priest’s writing style. I also enjoyed, deeply, the relationship between Eden and her aunt, Lulu. The idea that sometimes things change and never go back/are never the same again is something I relate to and understand completely, having gone through a life-changing family experience.
The conflict with Malachi I found enjoyable. He’s like some damn obnoxious bug that just wouldn’t.go.away. As well as the old woman, Tatey. They were amusing.
But the biggest problem I had with the story was that I didn’t like the resolution. It just didn’t seem realistic to me – at all, in any way. I don’t want to say that I expect total reality in my fantasy series, but this is urban fantasy, and I expect some sense of “this could really be happening.” Considering these people were mere mortals living in modern America, the idea of someone surviving for 150 years through a concoction of blood, marsh grass, and chanting (as well as a child being reincarnated over and over again), I just didn’t buy. There wasn’t enough explanation for me to really believe that the antagonist harnessed his magic. In Prospero Lost and Prospero in Hell, the magic makes sense. You understood how it worked, and why. Here, it’s just evil black magic that just kind of…goes on. It was revenge, it was a desire for immortality, it was…just not something I could realistically believe. The foundation of the magic just wasn’t solid enough, and the motives for the magic weren’t well justified. There were just a whole bunch of half reasons that didn’t seem to fully develop.
The second major problem I had with the book: I didn’t like Eden. I thought I did, at first, but as I reflected on the book, the more and more I just couldn’t like her. As someone who is around Eden’s age when the story takes place, I felt as though I shouldn’t be aware of exactly how stupid she was. There were a whole bunch of moments where I decided this girl was really too stupid to be living. She was smart in a lot of ways, but not smart enough to come out of the experience alive. I also felt Priest spent a lot of time having Eden talk about her own attributes instead of showing Eden’s attributes. Some of these attributes also seemed to come out of nowhere as Eden needed them – it was very Mary Sue.
(Side note: I found Cora the most interesting of the secondary characters, and would have liked to see her relationship with Eden develop, but she disappeared early on. The end of her story came so suddenly and disappointingly that I was a little rattled by it – the way it was completely glossed over and thrown in there, as though it was just a detail that needed to be wrapped up. Eden doesn’t even stop to feel a pang of sadness or anything. The time dedicated to Cora early on warrants a bit more than the one sentence mention towards the end of the book.)
But even with Eden’s slight Mary Sue-ness, there was something about Eden that was just obnoxious. I don’t know if was the way she thought she was tough (but stupid, which she never managed to mention) or the way she seemed to go out of her way to be the typical “I know everything” young adult, but it was really.really.annoying.
The last major issue I had with the story was the fact that to understand it, you have to literally diagram Eden’s family tree. Too many people who were related distantly or in more than one way (we’re talking brother/cousins here). It was ridiculously hard to keep track of who was who and what their relationship was to everyone else. I had to keep going back and rereading parts just to understand who was related to who and how they were related. I’m not a stupid person, but I couldn’t keep it straight in my head, and I found that irritating.
Overall, I can’t say I felt good at the end of this book. I really wanted to. I liked the premise a lot. I liked the magic, the ideas, the very weak foundation the story was built on. The book was too short to really get into that foundation, which was disappointing, and is keeping me from really recommending the book. And unlike at the end of Prospero Lost, I don’t feel any real need to go on to the second story.
Yes, there are two more Eden Moore stories…that I’ve added to my Amazon wishlist, by the way, but I don’t really intend to buy. Someone might buy them for me if they’re looking for gift ideas, that’d be fine. I’d read them. If I happen upon them at a used bookstore or a library sale (or something like that) for a good price, I’ll pick them up. Until then, farewell Eden. It’s been real.
words in scarlet ink 