See How Small (Blackwood) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Blackwood's portraits of all these characters are surprising and compassionate. Not a single sentence in See How Small is maudlin or overwrought.... It's not an easy book to read....descriptions of the emotional torture their families go through, however, are beyond heartbreaking.... It's a kind of paradox that Blackwood explores with compassionate eyes, beautifully poetic writing and artistic fearlessness. See How Small is a brutal, necessary and near perfect novel.
Michael Schaub - NPR


Mr. Blackwood has a way of writing where you feel like you’re constantly trying to catch up, be privy to what’s really making this story tick. While this style can be an asset, especially when leading a reader through a maze of intrigue, it can also be frustrating.... But the novel is not without its thoughtful statements brimming with stories wanting to be told.... See How Small is not for the faint of heart and has very little happiness or hope.... [It] raises questions about whether the real victims of a tragedy aren’t those that die but those forced to live.
Megan McLachlan - Pittsburgh Post Gazette


(Starred review.) [A] genre-defying novel of powerful emotion, intrigue, and truth. From the opening pages, which artfully skirt from past to present.... [B]ased on a similar, still-unsolved 1991 case in Austin, Tex., Blackwood explores the effects of senseless crime on an innocent, tightly knit community, using deft prose to mine the essence of human grief and compassion.
Publishers Weekly


The novel has much to say about the mysteries of the human psyche, the far-reaching effects of violence, and the disparate ways grief works on people.
Booklist


Similar on the surface to Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones, this lyrical, abstract, and less sentimental novel by Blackwood about murdered teenage girls observing the living will probably not appeal to as wide an audience but may haunt literary fiction readers long after the unsettling ending. —Laurie Cavanaugh, Holmes P.L., Halifax, MA
Library Journal


The novel is strikingly creepy, if a bit affected—the brevity of the chapters and gauzy prose have a lyrical effect but also make the story feel diffuse, with no one peculiar, uncanny moment given the chance to build up a head of steam. Blackwood is an excellent stylist, though in the name of unconventionality, the reader lacks a few narrative toeholds.
Kirkus Reviews