Bird Box

This was compelling, but overall I felt it tried unsuccessfully to lift itself out of the depressive, hopeless morass it so convincingly set up. The world Malerman presents really struggles to maintain suspense, because the only realistic expectation is that the ending will be “And they all died. The end.”

That, together with some really harrowing themes of child abuse, kept me from rating this four stars. I did like it, and while the premise seems to inevitably doom our characters unless there's colossal amounts of dumb luck on their side, it did serve to frame some spine-tingling set pieces that will be hard to forget!

I'm not sure if it was just through the writing or the voice of the narrator (Cassandra Campbell) of the audiobook I was listening to, but one of my favourite things about this book was the way it establishes a sort of dreary tone that hangs over the whole thing. The suspenseful moments work well and you can feel the discomfort and fear of the characters.

There are some weird story beats and expository details that took me a bit out of the book as I wondered if they really made any logical sense, but the story kind of innately has a built-in way to dismiss people acting in such ways. And there are some moments and decisions that really do land well.

Definitely enjoyed it overall, curious to see how Netflix managed to adapt it.