Malorie
A Bird Box Novel
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4.1 • 202 Ratings
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
In the “fast-paced, frightening” (The New York Times Book Review) sequel to Bird Box, the inspiration for the record-breaking Netflix film starring Sandra Bullock, bestselling author Josh Malerman brings unseen horrors to life.
NOMINATED FOR THE BRAM STOKER AWARD • “Malorie is even more of a psychological thriller than Bird Box, and all the scarier for it.”—The Wall Street Journal
Twelve years after Malorie and her children rowed up the river to safety, a blindfold is still the only thing that stands between sanity and madness. One glimpse of the creatures that stalk the world will drive a person to unspeakable violence.
There remains no explanation. No solution.
All Malorie can do is survive—and impart her fierce will to do so on her children. Don’t get lazy, she tells them. Don’t take off your blindfold. AND DON’T LOOK.
But then comes what feels like impossible news. And with it, the first time Malorie has allowed herself to hope.
Someone very dear to her, someone she believed dead, may be alive.
Malorie has already lost so much: her sister, a house full of people who meant everything, and any chance at an ordinary life. But getting her life back means returning to a world full of unknowable horrors—and risking the lives of her children again.
Because the creatures are not the only thing Malorie fears: There are the people who claim to have caught and experimented on the creatures. Murmerings of monstrous inventions and dangerous new ideas. And rumors that the creatures themselves have changed into something even more frightening.
Malorie has a harrowing choice to make: to live by the rules of survival that have served her so well, or to venture into the darkness and reach for hope once more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Malerman returns to the world of 2014's Bird Box for another taut, breathless supernatural thriller. Little is known about the horrifying creatures that have infested Earth, as every human who's seen one has become homicidally mad. Malorie Walsh keeps her children, Tom and Olympia, safe by scrupulously insisting they wear blindfolds at all times, even within their safe haven of the Jane Tucker School for the blind. But their stay at the school abruptly ends when one of the blind women there is affected by the creatures, which can apparently drive humans to insanity through touch as well as sight. The Walshes flee and take up a new residency in an abandoned Michigan campsite where Malorie implements additional protective measures, despite her children's growing rebellious impulses. After a decade of this life, a man claiming to be a census taker visits them. Though the suspicious Malorie refuses to speak with him, he leaves a report indicating that Malorie's parents may still be alive, forcing her to choose between maintaining the stable, isolated status quo and making a perilous journey in hopes of a reunion. Malerman masterfully evokes apocalyptic horrors via understatement and suggestion while facilitating suspension of disbelief through nuanced characterization and thoughtful worldbuilding. This is a bang-up sequel.
Customer Reviews
Amazing
Incredibly awesome sequel !!
Rushed Ending
Malerman picks up this fantastic story and sprints with it. Unfortunately the third act suffers as his sprinting becomes frantic and his failure to flesh out key plot points left me wondering how he decides to carefully craft these story lines only to tie them up with a paragraph or two (the fate of ‘Henry’, the story of ‘Sam’ are notable examples). I can’t help but think the next Netflix script deadline had something to do with the expedited conclusion to this honestly fabulous tale.
RE: the addendum- I have read most of Malermans books, usually in a day easily. I think it’s great that Malerman considers himself a Prolific but I don’t really see why his somewhat self aggrandizing diatribe needs to fill space in this book. Maybe should have saved it for the Vanity Fair spread (photos by Leibovitz natch)
Superfluous
Not horrible, but unrewarding and unnecessary. Maybe I shouldn’t have read this and Bird Box back-to-back, but just as the author seems like he got bored with writing the story near the end, that’s how I felt reading it.