Bird Box

Author: Josh Malerman
Pages: 262
Genre: Post Apocalyptic Thriller
Date Published: March 2014
Book Description: Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, 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 remains, 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. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, 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. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?
Thoughts: 

3.75 Stars 

The idea of beings that when see drive the person mad and make you hurt yourself or others was very intriguing. The story is told in two timelines, one where the whole is just beginning which was awesome and another where Malorie is escaping from her house with her to children.

I like the way it goes, it is not really horror which was the reason I actually decided to pick this book up, more like a post-apocalyptic world. I would have liked the story of the beginning of the whole disaster to be longer in order to get a few more facts, to get a bit more of an idea of how the world came to be the way it was. I understand that in order to keep the suspense it was impossible.

Yet it still felt that something was missing.

I still enjoyed reading the book greatly. The ending is as usual almost unbelievable, it was hard to picture such a convenient place to be found so close and so easy, the journey was not as difficult as it would have been made out to be, it was more like it was a slow pace because of the flashbacks rather than a difficult journey overall. Obviously doing it blindfolded and all represent huge disadvantages and it would not be an easy task but it still felt it was overly convenient how the place was reached with such simple instructions, almost like the house was placed there in order to make them find the place all along.

Anyhow it was still a very interesting book, the idea of being forced to give up one of you sense and the one we base most of our outside stimuli from was a great idea.

The bad thing is that there is really not an explanation about what really happened, if there are indeed creatures if the event was started on purpose, how they travel from one place to the other... A lot of questions are left unanswered. I am unable to make up my mind about how I feel about this story as a whole. At times it feels like that way it is more realistic, I mean if the world did indeed come to an end in such way there really would be no way of really knowing Not for the general population, that kind of information would most likely be only found in the high ranks of government or in certain circles of scientific community.

But for personal preference, I always enjoy more a story when the most pressing matters and mysteries are solved, but I guess I can concede that for this story leaving it unanswered works best.

Now comparing it to the movie:

In the book, Malorie is less of a cold mother which I like best, she does consider doing something awful but at least it always seems like she loves her children and wants only what's best for them.

She does not show a preference for her own child over the one that is not biologically hers.

Also in the movie, they add romance between Malorie and one of the housemates actually I liked that, even if in the book I did not see it as if it was missing when I read it when seen in the film, I enjoyed it. 

The film changes the housemates in several ways as well, it gives the inhabitants of the house slightly different stories, past, demise and such; again it did not bother me. Anyhow, I liked the movie a lot and enjoyed the book greatly as well. 

The journey itself was also a bit more realistic in the movie, the way to the place they were heading represented a bit more challenges, it felt like it was riskier than what it felt like in the book.

Though the suspense is more palpable in the movie obviously, the sounds and an added confrontations in the river might have made it seem like there was more danger; the fact that you go through it much faster than in the book helps make it seem more realistic as well. 

Recommend to see the movie, you don't have to compare them if you are like me and can see the film adaptations as completely different things it'll be better, constantly comparing two adaptations can take from the enjoyment factor.

The way children can be trained since such a small age is remarkable in both..... Personally, I like the book better in the sense that the relationship of Malorie towards the children seems more natural and normal, after all, she did raise them both. 

Even if in the film adaptation Malorie's story was shaped in order to make her psychological behavior rational, I still like better the other one. 

For movies, I usually mark 1 to 10

This one I really liked it.