Bird Box: A Novel

Josh Malerman

May 2014 · Sold by Harper Collins

About this ebook

“[A] chilling debut . . . Malerman . . keeps us tinglingly on edge with his cool, merciless storytelling. . . . This earns comparisons to Hitchcock’s The Birds, as well as the finer efforts of Stephen King and cult sci-fi fantasist Jonathan Carroll.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Written with the narrative tension of The Road and the exquisite terror of classic Stephen King, Bird Box is a propulsive, edge-of-your-seat psychological horror thriller, set in an apocalyptic near-future where an unimaginable, incomprehensible, and invisible foe lurks in the shadows—now available as a Harper Perennial Olive Edition

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. 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 of survival—a trip that takes her into an unseen world and back into the past, to the companions who once saved her. Malerman’s breathtaking debut novel is a horrific and gripping snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.

Ratings and reviews

A citified, dainty, limp-wrist version of The Road. Dialogue outsourced to a last-chance prep school for rich kids. Research by a bored housewife. The plot is a trust fund kid's idea of post-apocalyptic. Toilet's don't work! But the power's still on... And so are the landlines. Imagine having to resort to land lines! The horror. Caller ID and answering machines, which would solve major problems for the characters, aren't mentioned. The characters lose everything and barely make it past grumpy. Indescribable creatures (read that with an effeminate lisp) are making people crazy! And animals! Sometimes... When it suits the lethargic attempts at building suspense. Other times, seeing eye dogs are just that and work perfectly as plot armor. The protagonist is "clawed" by a wolf. Clawed. It and it's ensuing trauma are a major part of the story. Try to imagine a wolf or a big dog clawing something in an attempt at harm. Stumbling with that at all? Of course. Big cats use their claws for hunting. Wolves use their claws for running and digging. This fact made it past not only the writer but his ineffectual editor. I hate this book and I'm mad at myself for finishing it, and disturbed that it somehow warrants screenplay development and a big budget movie.

Riveting. It doesn't make the mistake of trying to explain everything, leaving enough detail to allow your imagination to fill in the gaps. It was an incredibly tense reading experience.

I like the unfolding of the story using the past and the present. One quibble: I grew up with blind people and it does them a disservice to perpetuate this notion of constant clumsiness. After even a fairly short time our brains adapt. We are capable of navigating our way, even hesitantly. I liked the pacing of the story, it kept me curious. I wish there was something more about the creatures but the aspect of the fear of the unknown becomes more of a shared experience because of the lack of knowledge.

About the author

Josh Malerman is the acclaimed author of Bird Box and more than three dozen books, as well as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band the High Strung. He has been nominated for multiple Bram Stoker Awards and lives in Michigan.