Bird Box by Josh Malerman is a multi-award-winning horror-psychological suspense novel, originally published in 2014. While Bird Box is a well-written debut with a creative concept, its pace creeps with too many unnecessary details, never quite delivering the thrills and chills readers may look for in their Halloween season reads. 

Violence: Moderate

Profanity: Moderate

Sexual Content: None

Explicit Language: None

Animal Cruelty: Mild

Thrilling Action: Mild-to-Moderate

Red Herrings: Mild

Twists and Turns: Mild-to-Moderate

Suspense: Moderate

Plot Development: Moderate

Character Development: Mild-to-Moderate

Pages: 305 (Kindle)

Best for Crime Fiction Readers:

• Who also enjoy the horror genre. Not a work of pure crime and mystery fiction, Bird Box is a dystopian horror-psychological suspense hybrid.

• Who don't mind reading some gory details. In Bird Box, there is modest gore, without the "payoff" of a strong, palpable sense of unease, apprehension, fear, and malevolence for the reader.

• Who don't mind, or may enjoy, pondering unanswered questions after finishing a novel.

• Who appreciate creative plots. Bird Box presents a unique take on the post-apocalyptic plot device.

• Who don't mind a slow-burning pace. For Mystery in Minutes, our choice for Halloween read 2017 never quite achieved a satisfying crescendo of tension and suspense.

MINM Overall Rating: 3.5/5

Publisher's Blurb:

Something is out there, something terrifying that must not be seen. One glimpse of it, and a person is driven to deadly violence. No one knows what it is or where it came from.

Five years after it began, a handful of scattered survivors remains, including Malorie and her two young children. Living in an abandoned house near the river, she has dreamed of fleeing to a place where they might be safe. Now that the boy and girl are four, it's time to go, but the journey ahead will be terrifying: twenty miles downriver in a rowboat--blindfolded--with nothing to rely on but her wits and the children’s trained ears. One wrong choice and they will die. Something is following them all the while, but is it man, animal, or monster?

Interweaving past and present, Bird Box is a snapshot of a world unraveled that will have you racing to the final page.