Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

20 reviews

chezler24's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Bird Box was a thrilling read. After finishing The Day of the Triffids, it was interesting to read another book where the loss of sight plays a part in the apocalyptic scenario at hand. Bird Box plays out a bit more intimately than the book I just compared it to. It focuses on Malorie, a woman who discovers that she is pregnant while these unusual, gruesome scenarios are popping up all over the globe. There is no hope for military intervention and Malorie has a small pool of characters she interacts with throughout her journey. The story is told where each chapter shifts back and forth on Malorie's timeline between the onset of the apocalypse where she is carrying the child and trying to find her way to a safe house nearby to the present scenario four years later where she is caring for hers and another woman's child (referred to as Boy and Girl throughout the majority of the events). The author handled this chronological back and forth well so the reader was never completely out of the loop or bored with understanding how things would come about in the flashback scenes. The book is a bit gruesome; however, it is a unique sort of horror because all of the scenes are either dictated from the point of view of someone who is only hearing and smelling what is going on or from the aftermath of a scene left behind ages ago. The absence of the character's sight does not hamper the reader's ability to experience what is going on in the scenes. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Gore, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Pregnancy

Moderate: Blood and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Grief

purplesky25276's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

10 out of 10!! This book was so much better than the movie! Oh! And you have to listen with the audio book! This narrative for the audio will have you so caught up in the story that it will make it harder to put down. This book gave a wide range of emotions. It was like I was right there with the Malorie!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

brookey8888's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really wish I didn’t watch the movie first, it would have been so much more creepy and interesting. I really enjoyed this and it did creep me out a little. It was enjoyable to see the differences from the book to the movie. I do have to say I liked the changes they made. In this I didn’t really like any of the characters to be honest and I’m not sure why mallory was like obsessed with Tom when they had like hardly any interaction. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

ronniek's review against another edition

adventurous tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Suicide, and Death of parent

ghostlyprince's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Gore, Suicide, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcohol

-There's a scene where the main protag considers and almost does brutally blind her children, Main protag mentions continually hitting or refusing to feed her kids until they did a skill correctly, Main protag at the beginning of the book threatens to harm her children if they disobey- however this could be taken as a literal warning of what could happen due to the nature of the monsters in the book

wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Gore, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, and Alcohol

kstericker's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Death, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Gore and Grief

Minor: Child death, Vomit, and Death of parent

jooreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, and Death of parent

emmaward55's review against another edition

dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The parallels between this book and the current pandemic genuinely took me by surprise as I read it. A life-changing event that forces people inside, time meaning nothing, schools and wider infrastructure shutting down, tragedy dominating the news... We all recognise these things as part of our own 'new world'.

What unnerves me the most, however, are the conspiracy theorists. The people like 

Greg and Don

  who become convinced that safety precautions are unnecessary, that they are smart enough to see this event for what it really is - and who eventually endanger others. Just like the anti-vaxxers who gather together to protest lockdowns, these people come into contact with others and try to take their safety precautions - in this case blindfolds instead of masks - and throw them to the wolves of this changed world.

I couldn't relax my shoulders for the last ten chapters of this book. It was tense, unsettling and morbidly fascinating. If I ever reread it, it'll be when the pandemic is years in the past. For now, I'll think of how the book ends, with strangers coming together to rebuild their world.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Suicide, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Child abuse, Violence, Blood, Vomit, and Grief

Info on child abuse:

Characters discuss blinding babies as a protective measure to prevent them going insane.

finn_vibing's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis