Genre: Horror


Thursday, January 08, 2015

Review: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

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Review: Bird Box by Josh MalermanBird Box by Josh Malerman
Published by Ecco on May 13th 2014
Genres: Adult, Horror
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four-stars

Most people ignored the outrageous reports on the news. But they became too frequent, they became too real. And soon, they began happening down the street. Then the Internet died. The television and radio went silent. The phones stopped ringing. And we couldn't look outside anymore. Malorie raises the children the only way she can; indoors. The house is quiet. The doors are locked, the curtains are closed, mattresses are nailed over the windows. They are out there. She might let them in. The children sleep in the bedroom across the hall. Soon she will have to wake them. Soon she will have to blindfold them. Today they must leave the house. Today they will risk everything.

I was up til 3am to finish this. Holy fuuuuuu…! This was one hell of a crazy ride. I love horror and thriller novels, and this one kept me on the edge of insanity from beginning to end.

It began with strange news stories of sudden killing sprees ending in suicide. A LOT of suicides. From people who were good, happy, full of life. When more and more stories started to pop up, Malorie, once skeptical, started to get very very nervous. She only knows one thing, and it’s that it’s all caused by something you see. Something that your mind either can’t process or understand to such a degree that you lose your sanity. Which means to survive, you need to learn how to live without eyesight. I found this incredibly frightening. There’s nothing more terrifying than the unknown, and this book utilizes this concept to perfection. Blindfolded throughout most of the story, we walk through this ravaged world with nothing but eerie noises and gut feelings that something is terribly wrong. That danger is RIGHT THERE, watching you. It plays with our imaginations in a wild, horrifying way. It’s easy to understand how people died, even knowing how to protect themselves. Not taking a peek would be so hard in that scenario – either fear or plain curiosity would be the end of many. I was even trying to mentally coax our protagonist to just look, just for a second. GAH!

Told using past and present perspectives, we learn how it all began, how Malorie made it to this point, and how she’s now surviving – merely existing, really – with two small children, trying to figure out how to make a better life for them in a seemingly dying world. The character building is excellent. You get to know Malorie through and through. She also grows quite a lot from the skeptical, average young woman to a strong, determined survivor throughout this story. She raised these kids in a harsh, yet necessary way for them to survive. It really broke my heart, but I understood its necessity. It’s easy to put ourselves in her shoes. When she was terrified, I was terrified along with her. When she felt something watching her, I found myself covered in goosebumps. It was some fantastic writing! We also meet a bunch of secondary characters who end up being a sort of family unit, getting through this tragedy together. The group dynamic is soon shaken, though, when a new guy arrives with crazy stories and a weird vibe. No matter what the end brings, there will always be humans who end up being just as threatening, it seems. We can be our own worst enemy, sometimes.

For my one minor complaint, there were a couple of events in the book that had me question its realism. Events that were maybe added for shock or emotional value, but appeared a bit too easy or simply unlikely. This wasn’t a big deal overall, though, especially how everything else – the fear, the desperation, the reactions – felt incredibly genuine. The ending could be a hit or miss for some. Don’t expect to get many answers to the “why” of it all – you can only know what your characters know. I would definitely recommend this to fans of horror, especially those who enjoy post-apocalyptic/survival stories.

four-stars

4 Hot Espressos

Twelve Nightmares Before Christmas: Guest Post by Courtney Alameda

Twelve Nightmares Before Christmas: Guest Post by Courtney Alameda

Posted by on 12/24/2014 • 6 Comments

On this Christmas eve, I’m happy to have the Twelve Nightmares Before Christmas tour stop by – I mean, y’all know me by now, right? >.< But don’t worry, it’s a lot more fun than scary 😉 On each day of this tour, Courtney is featuring a Christmas monster – keep reading to find out ours with a fun guest post below along with a giveaway! Here’s a bit of info on the book, too:

Twelve Nightmares Before Christmas: Yule Cat

Hi! I’m Courtney Alameda, author of the soon-to-be published YA horror novel, SHUTTER. I love Christmastime and all things scary, so I wanted to celebrate by sharing some of my favorite Christmas beasties with everyone this year—twelve of them, to be exact! Join me and a…

Review: Shutter by Courtney Alameda

Review: Shutter by Courtney Alameda

Posted by on 11/11/2014 • 31 Comments

The Helsing Corps only showed up when someone didn’t stay dead.

Do you hear that? Those are the sounds of my tears dropping, because shit just got serious, and I am overwhelmed with emotions over the fact that YA does know how to write a horror-filled, action-packed book. I nearly gave up! Hallelujah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

If you liked Fatal Frame, you would like this. Even though I only played 15 minutes of that game, it was enough to permanently scar my brain for the rest of my life. Everything was going so well with the slow prologue, and then a ghost appeared from out of nowhere and I threw my Playstation controller at the TV and ran out of the room like shrieking like a baby (I am not kidding. My little brother…

Halloween Thrills & Chills: Deleted Scene from Mary: The Summoning

Halloween Thrills & Chills: Deleted Scene from Mary: The Summoning

Posted by on 10/06/2014 • 19 Comments

Who else is excited that Halloween is just around the corner? Well today I’ve got a sweet treat for you as part of the Halloween Trills & Chills event hosted by The Midnight Garden! I’ve got Hillary Montana here with a deleted scene from her book, Mary: The Summoning. I read this one a few weeks ago and let me tell you it’s one awesome creep-fest! In case you missed it, you can find my review here! Also, don’t miss out on any more Halloween fun and giveaways by visiting the other stops on this tour. You can find the schedule on this post below, or on the kickoff post here! And before getting to the deleted scene, have a look at what Mary: The Summoning is…

Review: Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Review: Night Film by Marisha Pessl

Posted by on 09/11/2014 • 20 Comments

Night Film is a book that I can say is unlike any other. And now I’m going to contradict that and say it reminded me a bit of The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo. Not in story or plot, but in its atmosphere and compelling nature. Night Film gives us a mystery like no other, following a horror movie director – Cordova – who has become a cult favorite and a huge enigma; his entire life is an endless puzzle. After his daughter commits suicide, Scott’s journalist nature can’t help but dig into this story. What he finds is at once fascinating and horrifying. But… what’s the real truth?

At 640 pages, this is one whopper of a book. Don’t let this intimidate you, though, it never has a chance…

Review: Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Review: Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Posted by on 09/05/2014 • 6 Comments

What a crazy ride. I love thrillers, and while YA thrillers can be a lot of fun and even sometimes pretty creepy, it never lives up to what an adult book can dish out. This is your hardcore serial killer novel involving a mentally unstable psycho who thinks he’s doing the world a favor.

This story is told with the help of several perspectives: from the killer himself, to the detective trying to find him; to her daughter, along with a few other key players. Beukes tackles multiple POVs with excellence. Even though each character is widely different – we go from a homeless man to teenage girls – every single one has a distinct, realistic voice that makes it easy to slip into their psyche, in addition to…

Review: MARY: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan

Review: MARY: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan

Posted by on 08/29/2014 • 22 Comments

For some stupid reason I read this only at nighttime and it freaked me the eff out! I have always been terrified of Bloody Mary ever since a bad experience in middle school (just stupid kids thinking we saw more than we did, but back then it was intense!) and just the idea of being haunted by her like this… nope!!!

This book delivers fantastically when it comes to horror content and hair-raising scenes, however it does have a shaky start where I found the reactions to her first appearance underwhelming. My own fear of ghosts could not fathom being so calm when faced by a ghost in a mirror… Fortunately it got more believable after that, so don’t judge it too quickly if you feel like I did. Once…

Review: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Review: The Girl from the Well by Rin Chupeco

Posted by on 07/25/2014 • 13 Comments

Even with the great premise and creepy as heck scenes throughout, I can’t say I liked this one much, unfortunately. Though this is all due to the writing, and if you’re a fan of it you will have a much better experience with this book than I.

The writing is one that, although may work for some, I could never get used to. The narrative voices (plural because I “think” there were more than 1, but I’m not 100% sure…) are in 3rd person which is always harder for me to connect with regardless, but in this case even more so because of this particular all-knowing perspective the author adopts. Then when you add in the fact that the perspective changes – often abruptly without a chapter change or even…