Review Detail

As a reader, I divide Blink Once in half, and each half is very different. I honestly almost DNF-ed this book (for reasons I’ll explain below), but I was curious so I stuck with it, and I am very glad I did.

The problem I had with the first half of Blink Once was very much a matter of personal preference; very definitely an “it’s me, not you” situation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blink Once; prose, characters, and premise are all spectacular.

However, I tend to get very uncomfortable when a character has no power, has no voice. When they control nothing around them, when people are making decisions for them that aren’t necessarily the rights ones, but they don’t know that because the character can’t tell them so. That scares the you-know-what out of me, so the whole “paralyzed boy” situation made me sick to my stomach.

Sick to my stomach, probably, in the best possible way.

But then, halfway through, the plot twist rears its fabulous head, and I was in complete raptures over Busby’s storytelling. Like, oh my gosh, I couldn’t stop smiling, it was so good. I am not usually surprised by novels, but I was surprised by Blink Once.

I cannot say enough how relieved I am that I finished this book and didn’t give up on it. Because wow.

Now on to technical aspects. Busby’s prose is clean and sharp and effective. West, as the narrating character, was great (hooray for gender diversity in YA!). Olivia was interesting; I wasn’t a big fan of her, but still. The premise was basically brilliant, and I can’t even explain why without ruining the entire book.

If you aren’t a big pansy like me, then Blink Once is going to be amazing. It’s very similar to Megan Miranda’s Fracture in a lot of ways, so if you liked Fracture then Blink Once is probably a book you’d enjoy. For myself, once I (mostly) got over being a pansy, I liked Blink Once a whole lot better than Fracture.