Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Little Miss Blindfold

Bird Box by Josh Malerman follows Malorie, a pregnant woman, as the world falls to pieces around her.  People are seeing things that drive them to kill themselves and others.  No one knows what these things might be, but soon everyone is barricaded in their homes, only walking in the open world blindfolded.  It's a gimmicky sounding premise, but stay with me...

Content Warning: Suicide.  Lots of suicide.

Story  ☆★★★★

So, the whole set up is a bit unlikely.  I know that.  I spent a good few pages, once it became clear why people were blindfolded, trying to decide if I could suspend my disbelief.  Things -- creatures -- that drive everyone insane and nobody has survived seeing?  It's a little bit bad post-modern horror film.  But actually, I don't care.  Because this book scared me.  And it's been a long time since that happened.

The story is told alternately in the time when the creatures first started having an effect, and four years later as Malorie tries to find a safe haven with her two children.  The Malorie of the future is a harder, blunter and number woman than the Malorie of the past, and finding how she became that way is an interesting ride.

There was also a suspension of disbelief needed for the setting of Bird Box.  When the creatures arrive, Malorie lives in a world that has mobile phones commonly but people still listen to cassette tapes.  I'm not sure this time ever existed.

The cast of characters are a little bland.  None of them really stands out, apart from Gary, the suspiciously false and grandiose late edition to the household.  The strength of this book is not so much in its story, which goes the way you might expect it to go, but in the atmosphere Malerman creates...

Style  ☆★★★★

Malerman is a freaking creepy writer!  There's no subtle way to say it.  After 70 pages, it gave me nightmares.  Towards the end of the novel I was reading outside in beautiful bright sunshine, my cats playing at chasing flies, but I was jumping at each leaf rustle, each tiny sound.

The trick to this, I think, lies in the way Malerman taps into the inner child's fear of the dark, combined with that feeling when you're on the edge of a cliff and for a moment consider jumping off.  The whole book hangs on that temptation into destruction.  Malorie, and those around her, want to look.  They want to see what thing could possibly have such an effect on people.  And I want to know as well!  Malerman gently sprinkles his story with tales of those who tried to cheat and died as a result.

There are also moments of pure, nausea-inducing horror in this book that are handled very well.  A stand-out moment comes late in the book, as Malorie hunts for microphones in a pub.  Malerman is a master of twisting the tension nob slowly enough that you barely know it's happening until you're jumping at every flicker in the corner of your eye.

There's little finesse to the writing itself.  In fact, it reads in places like Young Adult (a fine genre, but not one I enjoy).  The prose is pretty basic, the dialogue can be a bit stilted.  It's not something that bothered me for long, as the story took over and swept me along.  The narrative is also third person present tense throughout, which I know bugs some people.

Substance  ☆☆★★★

This is where Bird Box fell down a little for me.  There was a lot of talk of 'insanity', 'madness' and 'fractured minds'.  In Bird Box, insanity seems to work in the black-and-white way that it does in Lovecraft.  A person is mad or they are sane.  Repeatedly the book asks, "Could a person already mad survive seeing the creatures?" a question that might be acceptable in a less enlightened time, but doesn't really work in the 21st century.

What does Malerman mean by 'mad'?  Does he mean, those who are already suicidal who deal with this compulsion every day?  Does he mean people with a specific diagnosis?  What about those who are very sick but medicated?  These are all questions it might have been very interesting to explore.  As someone with bipolar, I found it a little alienating.  

Otherwise, the book is a tense, claustrophobic horror without much deeper meaning lurking in the waters.  Which is fine by me!

Verdict  ☆★★★★

Come to this book with the right expectations.  It's going to be a quick read.  There are going to be moments that niggle with inconsistency.  The writing won't set you alight with poetic brilliance.  But I can almost guarantee you this: you will be creeped out.  You might even be scared.  Like me, you might have nightmares, and you might jump at tiny out-of-place sounds.  Bask in these rare qualities and enjoy them.