Bird Box

by Josh Malerman

Josh Malerman's debut novel BIRD BOX is a terrifying psychological thriller that will haunt you long after reading.

This is a book extract including chapter 1 of Bird Box.

Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors.

The house is quiet. The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows.

They are out there. She might let them in.

The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall.

Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them.

Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything.

• ISBN10: 0062259660
• ISBN13: 9780062259660
• Publish Date: 10 February 2015 (first published 6 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Collins
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[thepunktheory]

Full book vs. movie review on my blog!


I liked that the movie really committed to the "don't look or you'll die" theme. The only glimpses we get of the outside world are through blindfolds which is a nice change from all those horror movies that assault you with tons of special effects and monsters.
There were, however, several things that annoyed me about the film. For example, they just had to throw a completely unnecessary love story in there that made me roll my eyes. Furthermore, the movie feels much too long considering the amount of stuff that is going on - which is not much. We are left with many unanswered questions and I could have lived with that had the ending not been extremely unconvincing.
The movie started off strong, got mediocre in the middle and went completely down the drain at the end.
Now to the book. Thank goodness, this was much better than the adaptation. First of all, no love story! Josh Malerman gets bonus points for that. Moreover, things make more sense in the novel and I am inclined to believe Malorie's journey and how the story ends. In the movie, this felt just too far-fetched. They had also added a couple of scenes that strained the boundaries of logic and brightened up the ending a bit.
The novel does a much better job of making you feel the horror and the apocalypse thing that is going on. Many scenes in the film felt like the regular blueprint of every zombie apocalypse flick but in the book, there are fewer clichés. Although Malerman doesn't answer all the questions you might have, the book does give you a better idea and I felt more closure than from the movie.
I do, however, have one big question: WHY did they have to change the name of almost every character for the movie? I was a bit confused at first and then just irritated as to why that was necessary. Somebody, please enlighten me.

[maggiefan]

Well, I sure did not expect to like it so much.

[nora]

As someone who loves names and is completely fascinated by name etymology, I cannot possibly root for anyone who calls their children 'Girl' and 'Boy'.

[Quirky Cat]

I’m a bit behind on the times here, but I finally got around to reading Bird Box by Josh Malerman. As a rule, when I hear about a movie coming out based on a novel, but I have not read the novel, I wait. I’ve learned the hard way that usually I’m happier seeing the movie first and then reading the novel. I’m sure that anybody who experiences the pain of watching a novel they love to get turned into a subpar movie knows exactly what I mean by that. I can’t help it with the books I’ve already read, but there’s no need to heap onto that pain.
So I watched Bird Box first. I enjoyed it, even. But I was still curious about the novel. I’d seen people in the book groups I’m part of saying that both were good, but they were also both very different from one another (I pictured something like how World War Z is completely different between the two versions).
Having read and watched Bird Box, I agree with that assessment. To an extent. There was a lot more in common between the two than I expected. I wouldn’t say that normally, but since I went into the novel expecting something almost completely different, I was surprised by how many elements were kept the same, or at least similar. But I’ll go into that in more detail down below, for sake of spoilers.



Warnings: Bird Box has a lot of graphic deaths and injuries. That’s probably an obvious statement, by now. But better safe than sorry. The deaths look and seem like suicides, except the people committing them don’t really seem to be themselves. There are also a lot of animal deaths in this novel. I was surprised by that, given that the animals in the movie were fine. That is absolutely not the case for the novel. Consider yourself warned.
Bird Box was a fascinating and chilling read. It’s fast-paced and perfect for anyone looking for a dark thriller. It’s also post-apocalyptic, and one could argue a bit of a fantasy novel as well. Depending on how you want to look at the cause of events here.
It doesn’t explain what precisely is going on, during the pages of the story, but it doesn’t really need to either. Sure, it’d be nice to have some answers, but it isn’t required. If anything, never knowing the true cause or what the entities are just further added to the tension of the novel. It’s unlikely that Malerman will come out with a sequel for Bird Box since it seems like he told the story he intended. However, by not telling us the cause he’s left the door open to revisit the subject at his leisure.
It’s been a long time since I’ve found a dark thriller that I was able to really sink my teeth into. That’s partially my fault – I haven’t been looking very hard for them. So I’m glad that the hype from Bird Box was enough to get me to read it. I’m even happier that it lived up to my expectations.
There were some tough scenes, understandably. But they were all pretty well written. I’ll confess that I found the scene with Victor to be especially difficult, but that was mostly because it was completely unexpected. The rest of the tough scenes gave a bit more warning. Not much, admittedly. But enough where I was able to steel myself for them.
For me, the biggest difference between the book and the movie had to be the amount of animal death in the book. (Spoiler warning here) In the movie, it seemed like the animals were immune to whatever the cause of the epidemic was. At the very least, we knew that the birds were since they were used as an early warning system. In the novel that is absolutely not the case. No animals are immune, not even birds.
There were other differences as well, but most of the changes were made to have Malorie participate more in the plot. That does admittedly make for a better movie, so I get why those changes were made.
I’m happy that I took the time to finally read Bird Box. Part of me wishes that I had been more on top of things, and had read it closer to its release date. But it is what it is, right? At the very least I can say that I felt like it was worth the wait, and had honestly earned most of the hype it’s received.


For more reviews, check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

Bird Box is a book I've had my eye on for years but never got around to reading until now. As a lover of dystopian fiction, I anticipated that it would be right up my alley, and I wasn't far off. This book was unique and suspenseful and creepy enough to keep me intrigued.

Malorie is the MC of this story. She lives with her two children, known as Boy and Girl, five years after the world changed. She doesn't know what it is that's out there threatening her every moment, but she knows that she can't look at it and she's raised her children never to open their eyes outside and to listen always. I found Malorie to be an interesting character. She was certainly strong and sympathetic, but I never quite liked her.

The story is told in two parts, present day and flashbacks to how it all started. The past scenes include a cast of characters that Malorie found herself tied to for survival and I didn't particularly care about any of them either. Honestly, I didn't care about any of the characters at all, but that was really okay. This isn't a book about characters, in my opinion. It's a book about survival and those are my favorite kinds.

I love to be creeped out and Bird Box had no shortage of scary moments. The scariest thing is not knowing what the evil was. It was always there lurking and always hidden because the characters who see it weren't sane enough to tell the tale. I would have definitely prefered at least some answers about them, though. I do love books that leave some questions unanswered, but I also prefer to have an idea of what went on when the book has ended.

There isn't much more I can say about Bird Box without giving away spoilers, but I did enjoy it a lot. It wasn't a perfect book. The characters didn't resonate with me and I would have loved more answers, but I definitely would recommend it to fans of dystopian fiction and I can't wait to see the movie!

[leahrosereads]

Oh BIRD BOX why do you have to make me a bad guy?

This just wasn’t the horror book for me. I was duped by the hype and all the amazing reviews, and I though this is it, this is going to be the first fantastic horror of the year. I’m so ready! But it wasn’t. And that’s a damn shame, because I wanted it so bad.

The concept was fucking brilliant! A (post apocalyptic-y) world where there’s something so terrifying or unnatural wandering around that once seen causes people to go bat shit crazy and violent, and no one knows anything about them/it/???? Oh, I’m here for that! For sure. Unfortunately, the execution doesn’t match what sounded like a sure-thing in horror.

Let’s start with writing. It was simplistic sentence structure after simplistic sentence structure. It sometimes read as though we were in the mind of a child, but we were actually following around an adult woman. It was awkward and disjointed and not my usual preference in writing style.

The adult woman we were following, Malorie…oh Malorie. I know I was supposed to like you, empathize with you, sympathize for you, and want you to succeed and survive, but I didn’t. This is most definitely because of the writing. There was not enough investment in any of the characters, even the one the reader was following for most of the book.

The secondary characters, including the housemates were just there. They didn’t matter at all to me, and again, it’s because there was no substance to make me care about the severity of their situation.

But where this writing is almost negligent is the fact that I gave zero fucks about 2 four year old children?!?! What the fuck Josh Malerman? What the fuck. This isn’t on me. I tear up during songs/news stories/books/movies/etc. there’s a mother’s struggle with children. Those stories tear me to shreds, usually. But again, the writing didn’t give enough for me to give back emotionally.

The writing didn’t do the characters justice, and it didn’t do the plot any good either. Because there wasn’t enough details/driving points/whatever anywhere in this book, I just went from page to page, almost clinically because there was nothing. No suspense, no build up, no tense situations (even though there were places where it was supposed to be), because the writing didn’t give anything to those parts.

So really, we’re kinda sticking with the writing. I think if there had been more to this story, a lot of my issues with the characters and plot would fix themselves. It was under 300 pages. Maybe it need to be twice its size to really live up to the potential of the concept. But, it’s currently just my first disappointing read of 2018.

[ross91]

Last book of the year and I'm disappointed.
The story seems a mash-up of Blindness by Jose Saramago, the movie The Happening, and The Ring (kinda).
At first it gripped me and I couldn't stop reading, but then I just lost interest and I almost DNFed it.
I'm not even talking about the ending (which I found so unsatisfying), the main problem in my opinion is the protagonist, Malorie: she's so plain and underdeveloped, I can't find a single trait of her that stands out and I didn't care for her survival at all. Plus, the fact that she calls the children "Boy" and "Girl" urked me so much I started wishing for her death.
Anyway, I've decided to give this book 3 stars because I really liked the concept, I just wish it were better developed.

[SilverThistle]

It took a bit of time to get used to the writing style with this one but once I'd warmed to it I couldn't imagine it done any other way. It's very well done. I'm still trying to work out why the title was picked though. I understand what it is in reference to but still don't know why it was chosen, doesn't really make much sense to me. Oh well, it is what it is...

I suppose it's an apocalypse story, an end to our world, it's very, very frustrating to not know what's causing the apocalypse though. That is the feeling I'm left with after reading it - Frustration. I really liked it but it's more of a psychological horror and I like to know what I'm up against.

It's a very quick read at less than 300 pages but a lot seems to be packed in. It's chilling and harrowing and unimaginable and I'd recommend it but I felt it needed a better closure. Unless there is to be a follow on book? Is there?

*Note - I was sent a copy of this by the publisher*