Bird Box
I love the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic genre, but recently I think I have overdosed: there appears to be an upper-limit on how many vampires and zombies one can take. Not that these books aren't awesome, but sometimes it feels like same plot, different day. This is the reason that despite all the wonderful things I heard about Bird Box it took me an age to read it -- even though it fits perfectly within my favorite genres/sub-genres: horror and the apocalypse. I could kick myself for my resistance; I found Bird Box amazing. First, there is nary a zombie or vampire to been seen. And not just because everyone is Bird Box is blindfolded (see tagline "Don't Open Your Eyes"), but our Big Bad (or Bads) are something else. And part of the horror and beauty of Bird Box is that we never do (or can) find out exactly what the Bads are. Second, this book was seriously scary and I would have swore that I was immune to actually having a true fear response to anything in horror any longer, but my pulse was racing throughout my marathon reading session. I have always thought that part of what makes things scary is the unknown -- the idea that there is something there, but it can't been seen. This is probably why my favorite sub-genre of horror is the ghost or haunted house story -- that there can be ghosts everywhere, who could touch us if they wanted (or at least I figure that could be the case and ick!), but that we can't see, so can't deal with, is just terrifying. Right? So given this, Bird Box is a creep-fest extraordinaire. Third, see marathon reading session -- I could not put this book down. I finished it in one go and that isn't a testament to my reading ability, it isn't that long really, but that I found the story so engrossing that I just couldn't stop (at one point I tried to go to sleep, couldn't stop thinking about the book, and just gave up and read the rest). The writing was spot on, the alternating between the past and present and even the shifts in POV was masterful, and the concept and plot was tight. This book is not perfect and there could be improvements, but I think those all paled in comparison to the sheer awesomeness of the story.
