Black Bird of the Gallows (Black Bird of the Gallows)

by Meg Kassel

[nitzan_schwarz]

★ How to talk about this book... I feel pretty conflicted. Like, there are things I really liked about this one, and things I really didn't, and it's easier to talk about the bad things even though they're not necessarily overwhelming, and for some reason that makes me sad.

★ It feels like it's been a long time since I've read a truly YA novel. Out of the 35 books I've read this year, only 6 are YA, including this one. 2 of those were re-reads in order to continue with the series (which I haven't yet, but I will!!), so for my purposes, only 4. That's around 11% of my total reads this year, which is crazy considering how much YA I used to consume before. This isn't really because I chose not to or something like that, but I'm a mood reader who has had very little time to read this year, and when I'm stressed and tired I tend to lean towards fluffy romances, so YA kind of fell on the wayside.

Now, my point with this is so - out of the 4 YA books I've read, one was a fluffy contemporary romance, one was more of a soul-crushing/serious topic piece (I'm looking at you, [b:The Boy Who Steals Houses|40170373|The Boy Who Steals Houses|C.G. Drews|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1548416923l/40170373._SY75_.jpg|62315086]. Highly recommended), and the remaining one was a full fantasy that didn't really feel to me like the YA I remember reading before.

But Black Bird of the Gallows was the first book I've read in a while to really feel like that quintessential YA. That's not a bad or a good thing on itself--it just gave me this familiar and nostalgic feeling that I found myself rather liking.

In this vein, BBotG manages to avoid certain pitfalls and jumps straight at others, so I guess I'll talk more in-depth about both of those next.

★ On the one hand, the world in BBotG is pretty familiar in a sense - you know, the world of a normal girl turned upside down when she realizes there are more things walking amongst them than normal human beings. But instead of the familiar vampires, werewolves or their likes, BBotG brings a set of more interesting--and more terrifying--supernatural beings.

You've got the Crows, and the Bees, with the Bees being one of the more unsettling villains in a book. Mostly because they basically turn your body against you, making you insane and hurt others and kill yourself. They make your own brain betray itself, and everyone else will forever think it was YOU who did it. Gah *shudder*. As for the crows... they're just birds of prey. They won't kill anyone, but they need to feed of their carcasses (not physically, but energy-wise), so wherever death is headed, the birds make their way too.

★ Now, the Origin of these creatures--the so-called curse--is something I would've liked to delve deeper into, especially the Thing that happened that made magic mostly vanish from our world. The cop-out of "I don't want to talk about it" doesn't really work for me, so hopefully, the second novel in this universe explores this more.

★ Speaking of the curse... I thought it acted strangely. I mean, why was it broken because of True Love's Kiss sacrifice? Since this was not really a curse by the definition of "a magical punishment to an action", but rather a curse in the definition of "be afflicted with", caused by an experiment gone wrong, it shouldn't really have such a ridiculous fail-safe. It shouldn't have anything to do with proving yourself worthy of release or anything because you literally did nothing wrong. Your only "sin" was.... dying. At the wrong time. That's it. So... why is this necessary in order to release good people out of a horrible fate they never asked for??

And why aren't any of the so-called poweful-ancient ones just lifting these curses? The curses have no purpose in this world and are not aimed at bad people or anything. This is not their punishment, this is a mistake, so why not just... fix it, if you can? why do you fucking need two people to fall in love and sacrifice themselves for each other for the curse to be all like 'urggg fineee just be together already and leave me alooone!!!"

★ One of the huge reasons I had to give this 3 stars is that I wasn't a huge fan of the ending. Not because it was bad or anything like this, but because I just didn't believe the romance so it made zero sense to me.

The thing is, I started out really liking the romance here. I loved the fact Angie is attracted to Reece but she ain't going crazy because of it. She's not losing sight of reality, she is not doing stupid things, she is not letting it stop her from doing anything and everything she likes, and I like that a lot. Often, YA heroines just become ALL ABOUT THAT BOY when he shows in their lives.

But... BUT! A few buts, actually.

They didn't really have time to fall in love. From the beginning, we know they have a month maybe to be together, so I was already "oh-uh"ing at that time frame, and unfortunately, I was right. They had so few conversations and very few that weren't mire with stress, strange occurrences, fear, etc. I wish they've had more time to get to know each other before declaring any type of serious feelings.

I mean, they were literally a "couple" for a day or two, the knew each other a few weeks maybe, in which many horrible things happened, and the twist of "they knew each other in childhood" doesn't help this issue at all.

First, because, you don't get to know anyone in kindergarten, and she didn't even remember his name, so you can't claim some deep deep connection on her part [also, the whole story of Hank didn't really work for me time-frame wise, I was very confused], and second--and most importantly--if you think a boy who's been around a couple of hundred of years declaring he has fallen in love with her when she was six does your story any favors, you are DEAD WRONG. OMFG, when he said that I was so creeped out. Did Kassel really think this was anything other than highly pedophilic?

Because of these, I didn't really feel the romance or believed they'd go to these lengths for each other at the end. And that pretty much means the whole third act crumbles and burns, which is why I ultimately gave this one three stars and not a four. Although, I will say that I liked than Angie was basically already dying when she sacrificed herself. It's easier for someone like me, who wasn't really on board, to be like 'well, she WAS already dying so... like... I guess I can see her doing it?..."