Review: Bird Box

Bird Box by Josh Malerman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fear is a fascinating phenomenon. For many, it’s roots are fixed in childhood, where the darkness under the bed and behind closet doors holds unmentionable terror. As one then ages, that raw emotion again surfaces in the uncertainty of what exists beyond death—an unknown that forces one to cling to life no matter the cost. Bird Box manages to prey on that basic fear one experiences as a child, then builds to a crescendo as the horror matures. Author Josh Malerman grabs the reader by the collar and forces him to tear his hands from his face and gaze into the inky black.

This glittering piece of psychological horror is brilliant. Malerman’s style is fluid and manages to morph and mutate with the rise and fall of the suspense. In times of calm, his writing is straightforward and clear, rife with complicated sentence structures and rich vocabulary. When the tension escalates, the words become harsh—staccato and sharp, falling one after the next in a string of frenetic chaos. The action is revealed in almost surreal fragments that move from the present to the past, keeping the reader consistently off-balance and unsure, hesitant to turn the page and yet compelled to continue. Maternal instinct is turned into something stern and abrasive; evil hides behind smiling masks; and what lies in the dark becomes different depending upon the lens through which one views it. The intentional ambiguity of what is terrorizing the characters in this novel allows each reader to fill in the blanks with what one fears most, so the experience becomes intensely personal.

Malerman knows human nature and understands what scares us most. He also offers a ghastly grin in acknowledging that every single reader has to eventually close his eyes and be enveloped in the dark.

View all my reviews