Malorie has one chance to escape and one chance at giving her children a normal life. On a foggy October morning, she takes her children and loads them into the canoe, and flees to the river behind their home. Malorie has spent the past four years planning this escape. It requires her and the children to listen hard because they have to make this journey blindfolded.
Bird Box by Josh Malerman is an apocalyptic horror and suspense novel focused on Malorie’s journey to freedom. However, much of the book consists of Malorie’s reflections of the past: of her and her housemates surviving a world that they can’t see. Unseen creatures stalk the outside. Humans are forced to live with blankets covering the windows and blindfolds covering their eyes. Malorie grows close to her housemates as they navigate through this new world together, but every day she gets closer to giving birth and she is unsure of how her delivery will go or how she will raise her child in the new world.
Reading this book at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic was very eerie. Though this book was released in 2014, I found so many direct comparisons to the world in Bird Box and our current world while combating the virus: the blindfolds and masks, having to stay inside for long periods of time, paranoia and tensions rising as people argue over all of the possibilities and unknowns, and questioning how long this will all last. Because of this, I was able to find the book relatable in a way I probably wouldn’t have been able to pre-pandemic.
Besides this, the book consists of a great female main character along with themes of maternity, hope, and how it provides Malorie strength in the world of so many unknowns and fear. I enjoyed Malorie’s character and development a lot more compared to how she was portrayed in the film adaptation. Malerman wrote Malorie to be more relatable, kind, and determined. She felt realistic with her fears of being a bad mother, her hope of living a normal life again, and her memories. The contrast between the life Malorie once knew and the life her children have only known is a great parallel that is shown throughout the story and leaves you thinking about not only the resilience of children but also what it means to have a “normal” life.
I also enjoyed the Lovecraftian elements in the story: how the creatures are never described but the mere sight of them drives people “mad.” I felt like this modern take on H.P. Lovecraft’s way of story-telling was sharp and refreshing for this generation of readers. As a fan of all things horror and monsters, I appreciated the subtle nods to Lovecraft while also enjoying the modern prose and more relatable characters.
Overall, Bird Box is an easy yet captivating read filled with suspense, themes of motherhood, blindness, and hope. I would recommend this book to anyone whois a fan of horror and suspense but especially to those looking for a book to read in our current climate as I found so much relatability and eerie parallels within the pages.