So...Bird Box.

I have very mixed feelings about this book.

Entertainment: 1
Story: 1
Character: 0
Writing Style: 1/2
Description: 1/2
Total: 3 stars

So, this was an interesting conecpt and an interesting execution. In breaking up the past and the present, both stories have an extra weight to them that they otherwise wouldn't. I sped through the book just wanting to know what would happen next. Malerman definitely did a good job presenting what needed to be presented when. As well, the very concept lends itself to suspense. How many times have you felt something was wrong but was able to disuade your fears simply by looking to see that it was just something perfectly ordinary? Now take away the ability to prove your fears wrong and you have this book. Great concept for a horror novel.

Underneath that is something I'm not seeing as many people talk about but that was the more unsettling part for me in this book: how far are you willing to go to keep your kids safe?

Malorie abuses her children frequently in the name of training them. Not just physically either. It made my stomach turn in places. At first, I wanted to be upset about it, I still do in ways, but then I started to wonder how else would you raise a child to be safe in this world? I'm sure there are ways, but for a young mother living every day on her own and in fear, what else is there that will guarantee their safety/training. It's a concept I didn't think I'd be mulling over when I first picked up this book. However, the ending makes me wonder if the author intended for me to be so focused on this idea at all or just accept it as what happened. The writing seems ambivalent to what is straight up child abuse. In fact, Malorie is in a way rewarded for it. Either way, it was an added layer of unsettling that I wasn't expecting.

Then there's everything else in this book.

Character & Dialogue aka EVERYONE SOUNDS EXACTLY ALIKE!

I love character driven novels and this is not one. Not only does everyone speak the same way, their dialogue is stilted and with too many moments of too much explanation.

Now, (as a writer) I'm not the biggest believer in the idea that every character's dialogue has to have perfectly distinct speech patterns that you can pinpoint without dialogue tags, BUT this is only because I AM a big believer in the idea that dialogue is only about 50% what's said. The rest is made up of how something is said (intonation/inflection) and the character's body language/facial expressions while they're saying it. Non-verbal communication is just as important as verbal even in prose. Three characters can say the exact same words but in entirely different ways by describing how they say it with both their voice and body.

This is very rarely utilized throughout Bird Box. Because of this, everyone sounds like they're simply channeling what the author wants to say in that moment. Tom is especially bad about this. Tom isn't human. Tom is a vessel for the author to speak through. This isn't helped by the fact that all these characters are pretty damn boring. Even Gary. Even Tom. Especially Malorie. The number of unbroken backstory dumps wore on me. And there weren't even that many, that's just how much I hate unbroken backstory dumps. At least break it up with some body language or ums and uhs.

Tip for growing writers: very few people speak perfectly and/or grammatically. People stumble over their words, hesitate, use filler words and run-on sentences, they sometimes have to reword what they just said or think they do, they sometimes talk in circles and cut themselves off when they realize what they're doing. Eavesdrop sometime and you'll hear exactly what I'm describing. Unrehearsed/unedited, perfect monologues don't come out of realistic mouths.

Either way, this is not a book you read for character. This is a book you read for conecpt. Which isn't a bad thing, but I would like for once to have both. Why is that so difficult?

This doesn't have a lot to do with character, but why was Olympia in the story? Why couldn't Malorie just have had twins? Why did they have to go into labor at the same time? It took me out of the story entirely. Yes, I am aware of how weird it sounds that in a book about creatures who drive people insane at the sight of them, my breaking point was two pregnant women going into labor at the same time, but it did. Also, that labor scene--I got it, labor sucks. Good job Malerman. You did your research. Let's move on now.

Writing Style aka He writes in short sentences. The sentences help with suspense. The sentences get monotonous.

Short sentences are great. They build suspense, they create tension, but for Malerman, they're a crutch. It gets especially tedious when it becomes a page of:

"Malorie goes downstairs. She carries a bucket. She is tired. She wants to stop. She walks through the living room. She is in the kitchen now. She puts the bucket down."

That's not a direct quote, but it's not far off. While this works to a degree, once you notice it it's a bit maddening. Especially since you can get the same effect while still varying the sentences:

"Malorie goes downstairs, bucket in hand. It is heavy and she wishes she could stop. Crossing through the living room, she enters the kitchen and finally releases the bucket."

And that's what frustrates me the most about Malerman's writing style (besides the fact that it's not so much a style as it is a lack of one), it works for this story, but only just. It works because the characters are in a state of constant edge and the short sentences keep the reader on edge, but I still can't help but notice where the language could have been even stronger had Malerman spent more time experimenting with his sentence structures.

And where he does experiment, he expounds. There's a lot of over grinding of thoughts in this book. Some of it I didn't mind, but others drove me insane. As I already mentioned, the labor scene was especially agonizing to get through and not because of the topic but because of the fact that we had to hear over and over again about what was going on. This was not a scene where I needed grand descriptions and musing from Malorie, this was a scene where I needed those simple sentences and simple touches. Instead, we got filler stalling until we got back to the good stuff.

Descriptions aka I still don't understand Tom's helmets.

While certain parts of the story were described enough for me to get the idea, others weren't described at all. Tom's helmets especially bothered me. Why were they made from multiple pieces? What were these pieces? Why were they always falling apart? How was he attempting to adhere the pieces together? WAS he trying to adhere the pieces together? Has Malerman never seen a motorcycle helmet? It would have done a much better job. If two pregnant women can appear at the same house and go into labor at the exact same time and they can find two huskies in two different houses, there could be a pair of motorcycle helmets magically found in the garage.

Because of the nature of the story, there didn't need to be a whole lot visually described and Malerman did a great job of conveying the surroundings simply by the characters' touch and hearing (though this was often ruined by lines such as, "Tom felt cardboard in the window. 'It's cardboard in the window,' Tom said.") but there were enough things, such as the characters' body language or details of the house that I just wanted more of.

(By the way, yes, I would have loved for someone to have described the creatures, even if briefly, but I think that's just a greedy-reader thing and not something that would have actually made the story better)

This was especially frustrating because those first few pages are exquisite. I even considered returning the library book and finding my own copy, thinking this would be a good "style study" book. Maybe it still is, but just not how I had thought.

There were so many things about this book that I loved, that made me excited, that made me think, but then I'd turn the page and find something that reminded me that I was reading text on a page of someone's debut novel. I definitely think with some practice and studying, Malerman could be one of the greats. He already has an amazing imagination and a good feel for pacing, which has him at a head start, but his characters, dialogue, and style need work. And I don't just mean some tweaking with an editor. He needs to sit down with these concepts and strengthen his understanding of them. It's absolutely doable and I'm willing to follow his writing to see if he figures it out.