Bird Box

Written by Josh Malerman, Bird Box is a post-apocalyptic horror novel about a world where people are haunted by unfathomable creatures that drive everyone who lays eyes on them mad. The book, however, fails to take advantage of this terrifying premise, unable to present compelling characters and scenes packed with tension.

The protagonist is Malorie, a woman who finds herself pregnant precisely on the day humanity is attacked by mysterious monsters on the streets: every person who looks at them commits suicide, so there’s no one alive who knows what they look like. With her eyes closed, Malorie leaves desperately for a house that is being advertised as a refuge and discovers other survivors. Years later, however, she finds herself alone again, having to raise two children, and decides to flee with them to a safer place, traveling blindly by river.

Much of the narrative focuses on the group Malorie meets in the refuge, led by the charismatic Professor Tom. By working with the dynamic between these individuals – who are basically trapped in a closed chamber –, the narrative tries to build a discussion on how the human mind is susceptible to paranoia in stressful situations and how this invariably leads to reckless actions. But the book falters when it comes to the most important part of the premise: its characters are simply not interesting enough to warrant any meaningful discussion. At best, they can be described as one-dimensional. At worst, they lack even that dimension, being a void of pointless lines so empty that there is nothing there to even stare back.

Olympia, for example, is the other pregnant woman in the group and her personality is limited to… being pregnant. Jules is a guy who likes dogs… because he has one. Cheryl becomes angry easily and that is Cheryl. Tom is the “alpha male” of the group, giving everyone a sense of security by making it his job to solve the majority of the problems that arise there. Don is the unbearable one with no redeemable traits, the character that we are supposed to despise. And Felix actually stands out from the bunch, but for achieving the feat of being even simpler than the previous characters, not possessing a single striking feature: Felix is ​​just a name on the page.

Since Bird Box is full of such characters confined in a small space, the result couldn’t be any other than disastrous: we are stuck with the points of view of very dull individuals, who never go beyond their initial descriptions. Despite being the protagonist, Malorie is equally flat, only thinking two things during the whole novel: she is either worried about her children’s health or lamenting that Tom is not there to help her.  She can hardly be considered a strong female character, then, showing time and again that she feels lost without that strong male figure to shield her from harm.

The horror element of the book is as poorly developed as its characters, with the big action scenes always feeling more ridiculous than terrifying. Even the build-up to the invasion doesn’t work, happening too quickly: the rumors that the suicides are being caused by seeing “something strange” have barely begun and instead of there being an initial rejection of such an absurd idea, Malorie already finds a guy putting bandages on his eyes when she visits a pharmacy. Not to mention that, until that moment, the television had not mentioned more than five cases taking place around the entire world.

The monster itself doesn’t fare much better either. Since those who look at it end up dying before they can reveal anything, its characteristics are kept hidden from us, which initially works very well, as it creates a mystery around the creature, building suspense over the idea that we fear what we do not know. But this is never fully explored, and even the clear Lovecraftian undertones – we’re dealing with a monster so frightful that only seeing it causes madness, after all – have no kind of payoff, being barely acknowledged by the story.

To add insult to injury, the book seems unaware  – much like Shyamalan in The Happening – that the premise creates visually ridiculous situations, such as people driving with their eyes covered by their hands or going out to explore the neighborhood pretending to be blind. These are scenes that, depending on the tone, could be in a comedy. The narrative, however, presents them as if they were naturally tense, never attempting to reconstruct them in the reader’s mind in a way that feels more frightening.

Not that this would have saved the book. Malerman’s prose, after all, is also problematic. It is basically composed of short sentences. This leads to a severe pacing problem. Mainly, because it means there are countless pauses. The act of reading is simply unable to flow naturally. And this negatively impacts the buildup of tension as well. Normally, short and simple sentences can be used to heighten the impact of certain shocking scenes. But this is only possible due to the contrast with the more complex paragraphs that came before. In Bird Box, however, there are only small blocks of short clauses. They are everywhere. So, the moments in which these sentences would make sense never stand out. They end up lost in the middle of so many others.

Another problem in the novel is that Malorie never properly names the children she takes care of, calling them only Boy and Girl. This doesn’t work as a commentary on her despair because we are not dealing with Malorie’s desire to distance herself from the children with this form of naming, as protecting them appears to be her only goal in life. She deeply cares for them, so it would be paradoxical in a nonsensical way. The idea that not giving them common names would help her not feel so much pain in the event of their deaths doesn’t work either, as it doesn’t diminish her affective bond with the children. She keeps fighting to protect them and they mean the world to her. So, she never giving them proper names doesn’t make too much sense.

But that is a recurring problem in the novel. Some scenes lack as much tension as they lack logic: at one point, for example, Malorie leaves a house with a dog because she believes the animal is essential for her to get back to her car safely, guiding her along the way. However, she eventually needs to return to the house and she manages to do so without the dog and the narrative never acknowledges how that shows the futility of her initial plan.

In short, Bird Box is an extremely flawed horror novel. It suffers from problematic prose. And is ultimately bogged down by a narrative that is devoid of meaning, purpose, and even exciting scenes: there’s nothing to see here.

December 20, 2024.

Originally published in Portuguese on October 21, 2016.