Bird Box by Josh Malerman

January 28, 2019 Kirsty Hanson

You ALL know what Bird box is. When you think of it, some of you think of the hit Netflix show which blew everyone away, and some of you will think of this captivating, thriller novel that makes you feel tense right up until you shut the book, and you feel your body finally relax.

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it’s time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat–blindfolded–with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

I did something very unusual for me when it came to this book. I watched the film first. I know I know. Usually, I hate doing that, but in this case, I had never heard of the book.

The film was alright. Nothing special, but enjoyable. Then, one of my best friends told me that I had to read the book because it was amazing and it was one of her favourite books of all time.

Not wanting to disappoint, I downloaded the ebook and got reading.

“Your worries only keep you safe long enough to worry some more.”

– Josh Malerman, Bird Box

If you – somehow – don’t know anything about Bird Box, it’s about a world that goes a little bit crazy because there’s this invisible entity that causes people to kill themselves and other people when they see it. So, everyone ends up blindfolding themselves, or locking themselves in their houses.

Not ideal, really.

One of the things that I liked about this book was the way the novel was structured. I loved how the plot goes back and forth between Malorie travelling along the river with her two children, to back when she lives in a house with a group of other people. By telling the story this way, Malerman makes the mystery of the unseen beings more mysterious, and makes the reasoning behind Malorie travelling on the river more intriguing. we have to keep on reading to find out what happened at the house to cause her to flee.

“It’s better to face madness with a plan than to sit still and let it take you in pieces.”

– Josh Malerman, Bird Box

Obviously, there are negatives. Otherwise it would be five stars. At first, I hated that it was told in third person present tense. It seemed so foreign to me and I did actually quite struggle reading it because of that. But, I forced myself through the first 3 or 4 chapters, and I slowly got the swing of the writing style, and ended up quite enjoying it. I wouldn’t rush out to go and read another book that is written in this style, but it kinda worked for Bird Box.

And the final thing I’m going to say about this, is the ending. I know that a lot of people have complained about the ending, and I don’t blame them. It’s the most underwhelming ending that I have ever read. I was expecting to finally learn more about the creatures that are causing this mayhem, I wanted to some more information. What I didn’t want was the whole ending to be one GIANT LOOSE END where we’re just sat there like. oh. ok. that’s it?

I don’t want to feel like that when I finish reading a book.