Malorie (Bird Box #2)

Good book to end the Bird Box saga. This review has spoilers so if you want to know what happens in this book without reading, please continue. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. The book starts with chaos erupting at the School for the Blind. Malorie, Tom and Olympia (who are now both 6 years old) flee the school. It turns out that a woman at the school, who could see, was \”pretending\” to be blind and saw a creature inside of the school, went mad and started attacking people. Anyway, they flee and end up at an old summer camp. They stay here for the next 10 years. 10 years later, Tom and Olympia are both 16 years old. Tom is a curious, inventive rebellious kid and Olympia is a more subtle person. One day a guy from the census stops by but is told to leave. He leaves papers with information of a town called Indian River and a train that takes survivors there. Malorie finds out that her parent\’s names are on the census. She thought they were dead and decides to take the kids on a trek to the town. Once they make it on the train, it turns out that Gary ( bad guy from the first book) has been following Mal and the kids for some time now and is on the train too. Once Mal is separated from the kids, he catches her alone and throws her off the train. Olympia gets off the train to save her while Tom is on the train with Gary, who feeds him lies about how looking at the creatures is safe. As Olympia save Malorie, we find out that Olympia can SEE and has been able to SEE the whole time without going mad. She\’s kept this secret for over 10 years. Mal and Olympia make their way to the town just in time to see Tom using an idea he thought of (using two way mirror glass) to look at a creature. He looks and doesn\’t go mad. At the same time, Mal\’s father hears her voice and they are reunited. Tom has found a way to look at the creatures and all the survivors start going out to find more two way glass to use to make glasses so they can look at the creatures without going crazy. As the book ends, Malorie gets a crossbow and her kids help her to aim it at a sleeping Gary and she shoots him through the heart killing him instantly. As the book ends, Malorie is at the grave of her mother and she takes off her blindfold, puts on a pair of the special glasses, and looks at the world and a creature for the first time in 16 years. The end.

Bird Box is still one of my very favorite books of all time. I was literally on the edge of my seat and closing my eyes while reading it. I preordered Malorie the second that it was available knowing very well that I was bound to feel some disappointment. Unfortunately, this sequel had none of the atmospheric tension of the first. I was quite bored and stopped caring what happened.

Its like someone held a gun to the authors head and said,\”wrap up this book in 5 hours or youll be sorry.\” The ending (no spoilers) was immensely dissapointing and made no sense to me. Everything was wrapped up neatly in a bow. Eveeyone except oylmpia was immensly dislikable (which is legit in a book sometimes if that is the authors intent). There are a million stream of consciousness thoughts between any action, which was annoying. If you are fighting for your life and scared, do you think about your childhood ? Doubtful. The book was the equivalent of GOT season 8. Bird box was a great premise and twist on traditional scary world ending monsters, but a great idea was destroyed by an author, who most likely didn\’t have a great way to continue to story, but did the best he could. I respect r.r Martin because he doesn\’t do crap like this eveb if people are clamoring for more. Don\’t buy this

Clearly with the sequel, this author lost steam. What had made Birdbox so good was the tension and suspense that ran throughout. This book tried to generate some, but it was never as good as the first book, never cant put this down compelling. The end also felt rushed, tying up in a less than neat fashion (Spoiler alert)… really? Her reasonable parents were living in the town of crazies? With all the unburied dead dumped around it? And what about the leader who was supposed to be so reckless and crazy? That just fizzled out. And you want me to believe that in 16 years no one tried looking at the monsters through a one way mirror? And the whole existential explanation of why that worked was so lame, just the kind of silly explanation a teenager would come up with but that wouldnt work in the real world. Considering he appears to have been the living ghost that haunted Malorie for over sixteen years, the death of Gary felt like an afterthought and was especially unsatisfying. If Netflix is going to make a sequel to Bird box, they wont find much inspiration in this book.

I\’ve been excitedly awaiting this sequel to BIRD BOX which was a great, unique post-apocalyptic story. And I wasn\’t disappointed with MALORIE. Most of MALORIE takes place 12 years after the ending of the first novel (although there is a short section at the beginning that takes place 2 years after). The children are well on their way to being grown up now at 16 years old. Malorie, Tom and Olympia are living by themselves in an abandoned youth summer camp in Michigan and have been for 10 years. Tom especially is feeling the restraints this current life of blindfolds and fear place on the world. He wants to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that will break the monotony of their days and nights. So after a surprise visitor appears at their door and leaves momentous news, Malorie makes a life-changing decision for the family. I enjoyed this sequel very much. The characters are more developed this time around and the story is suspenseful. I did feel like the ending was rushed (and that\’s why 4 stars instead of 5) but it worked neatly. I highly recommend this book but be sure to read BIRD BOX first.

Galaxyaudiobook Member Benefit

- Able to comment

- List watched audiobooks

- List favorite audiobooks

- Bookmark will only available for Galaxyaudiobook member