Friday, June 19, 2020

Book Review: The Girl Who Sees


Sasha Urban is an illusionist—a stage magician. After doing her card tricks in restaurants, she finally gets her break to do her act on a TV talk show. Although nervous, Sasha manages to guess the card the host is thinking of, and a sealed envelope reveals her prediction of the day’s headline. All this is normal stage magician stuff. After all, Sasha knows the supernatural does not exist.

Then a zombie attacks her onstage—an actual zombie. The security people tear it apart as if they do this all the time. After being stared into a trance, Sasha is carried back to her apartment. She has a dream of another couple of zombies getting sicced on her. When this comes true, a friendly neighbor named Vlad destroys those two. Vlad doesn’t need to eat, and he doesn’t seem to age, so he’s a …



The Girl Who Sees by Dima Zales is a fun novel. Sasha keeps seeing impossible things, but because she gets put into a trance, and the people around her downplay what she sees, it’s a while before she knows for sure that the supernatural is real. As a stage magician who knows that magic is not real, this rocks her worldview.

This is written in first person, which is common enough for urban fantasy. But it’s also written in present tense, which I didn’t notice while I was reading it. First person present tense is best for a character who does not know what is going on, and that fits Sasha.

We also get an insight into how certain stage magic tricks are done. For me, this doesn’t ruin those performances—it shows the immense preparation that goes into them. And Sasha uses her mentalist abilities to try to get some clue as to what is happening around her.

Also, it is peppered with pop culture references--everything from The Matrix to Batman to Alice in Wonderland. And okay, Sasha Urban is a marketing kind of name for a character. But it works. Fellow writers should not be jealous.

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