Bird Box by Josh Malerman

(I was listening to The White Album while reading this book - let me just tell you, Revolution 9 was very fitting for the climactic scene near the end. Eight years after first hearing that track, and it still gives me the willies.)

(Also, yes, the Ulysses discussion post is coming, I still need to figure out my setup and wording for it)

From Goodreads/Back Cover: 
SOMETHING IS OUT THERE . . . 

Something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse and 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, Malorie has long dreamed of fleeing to a place where her family might be safe. But the journey will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat - blindfolded. 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, interweaving past and present. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, I was listening to The Beatles' White Album while reading this book. Revolution 9 proved to be the most atmospheric track for reading this book. 

Bird Box reminds me of The Road combined with The Fireman. Apocalyptic horror, unknown cause and a group of people banding together to stay safe. I enjoyed reading Bird Box, finding it to be more apocalyptic in a conventional way unlike The Fireman. There are many similarities to Cormac McCarthy's The Road, another little book that I enjoyed. I found first time writer Josh Malerman's writing to be very tight with a unique writing style. It employs a bit of stream-of-consciousness (for lack of a better word) during more panicky scenes which I always enjoy reading as I find it's close to reality.

As I mentioned in my previous post on The Fireman, I'm going through a horror kick. This is my third horror summer read, and I'm hoping to have Adam Nevill's The Ritual finished relatively soon. I think I'm heading to Chapters either tomorrow or Wednesday, so I might pick up Stephen King's The Stand as well, something that a few people have recommended. This book was the perfect fix for my horror junkie state. It was really chilling. I love books/movies/TV shows that employ the fear of the unknown or the unseen. 

Going off of that, Bird Box really plays into that irrational fear of the unknown. One of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who is Midnight which aired in series four. It featured an unseen monster that infiltrated a sky bus the Doctor was on and began terrorizing the passengers. It was phenomenal and played into the fear of the unknown/unseen perfectly. Bird Box, oddly enough, reminded me of that TV story. The monster is never revealed and I think it is a better story for it. It doesn't fulfill the reader's every wish (but really, it's much better not knowing, making the reader imagine what the monster is, rather than tell the reader what it is and have less tension and suspense as a result).

All in all, a really enjoyable, thrilling read. Bird Box gets a 5/5 from me, and I can't wait to see what Josh Malerman does next.