Words like 'unputdownable' and 'irresistible' are simply not enough for Cat Winters's In the Shadow of Blackbirds. Days after finishing this story, it remains the first thought I have in the morning, and the thing that haunts me until I sleep.

For males twenty-five is the fatal age. For women it's twenty. We are all dropping like flies.

I don't dare touch her. Loss is a knowledge I'm sorry to have. Perhaps the only thing worse than experiencing it, is watching it replay anew in someone else--all the awful stages picking up like a chorus that has to be sung.

There are so many of us, so many girls. The world wants us for our wombs or our bodies, or it doesn't want us at all.

Tell freedom I said hello.' 'If I happen to see it, I will.

Bet you never eat, he says. Bet you drink up the oxygen like it's butter. Bet you can go for days on nothing but thoughts.

Write words you’re willing to burn at the stake for. Write words you’d believe in even if the rest of the world didn’t.