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Bird Box: A Novel
| Title | Bird Box: A Novel |
| Writer | |
| Date | 2025-04-19 14:18:05 |
| Type | |
| Link | Listen Read |
Desciption
“A book that demands to be read in a single sitting, and through the cracks between one’s fingers. There has never been a horror story quite like this. Josh Malerman truly delivers.” — Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of WoolWritten with the narrative tension of The Road and the exquisite terror of classic Stephen King, Bird Box is a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat horror thriller, set in an apocalyptic near-future world—a masterpiece of suspense from the brilliantly imaginative Josh Malerman.Something is out there . . . Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse 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 remain, 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 is 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. And something is following them. But is it man, animal, or monster?Engulfed in darkness, surrounded by sounds both familiar and frightening, Malorie embarks on a harrowing odyssey—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Under the guidance of the stalwart Tom, a motely group of strangers banded together against the unseen terror, creating order from the chaos. But when supplies ran low, they were forced to venture outside—and confront the ultimate question: in a world gone mad, who can really be trusted?Interweaving past and present, Malerman’s breathtaking debut is a horrific and gripping snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page. Read more
Review
Take a picture of this:Creatures, or some type of monstrous presence, are making people go mad just by looking at them. At least thats the consenus for those who survive, since they live on by not looking. Instead they stay blindfolded, putting blankets over the windows, and doing so as if their lives depend on it. Most are not so diligent, and madness kills in remarkable ways.Bird-Box is a remarkable book. Apocaylptical, in a sense, but with the focus on a small microcosm of one community and how they survive, and in particular, one mother. The story begins with the mother venturing for safety with her two children, all of them blindfolded, and the children trained with discipline on the art of audio detection. Chapters go back and forth to the backstory of the sanctuary she is leaving, and they link together wonderfully. At times when chapters begin, they brilliantly carry over sensory from the preceding chapters, but of a different time period, which makes the stories intersect with near magical realism.The story reads fast, smart, and the author's skills were hard not to notice. When an author can make you feel like a character in the story.. and I don't mean just, feel 'for' a character in a story, and empathize for them, but make you feel like you are with them, trapped in a house, wearing a blind-fold, and feeling so handicapped by not being able to see, but having all your other senses on fire, and your brain awhirl with possibilities. That is tremendous, and that's what the author has done. I felt like I was there. Like I wanted to peek and see what was driving us all mad. So many passages were done with no visual imagery, which isn't easy, and could be boring, but not at all here. I had to pull out the Willy Wonka line as I was reading.... "the suspense is kiling me. I hope it lasts."There was more than one nice twist, some odd characters, some noble characters, and the expected infighting where it is your fellow human survivor, not the 'monsters', who become the one to fear.Literary license is used to carry tone as the story gets frenetic towards the end. As great books do, this one does not reveal all its secrets, and doesn't let you see everything at the end that you might want. Then again, if you had seen everything, you would not be a survivor. You'd have bashed your own skull in with the closest blunt object you could find until brain matter dripped from your ears. So be glad for it.~Mark Matthews, author of MILK-BLOOD
