Malorie by Josh Malerman is the fast-paced, heart-pumping sequel to one of my all time favorite books, Bird Box.
When the preorders for this one opened up, I ordered it immediately! I couldn’t wait to be immersed back in this terrifying world!
Let’s dive in!
My Thoughts on Malorie by Josh Malerman
I think this is a book that’s best to go in as blind as possible, so feel free to stop here and scroll to the last section. This will be a pretty short one.
So first things first… my goodness. The first section set at The Jane Tucker School for the Blind… This scene had me absolutely TERRIFIED. It all happened so quickly and I loved that, per usual, the reader is left in the dark just like the main character, Malorie. I was so antsy to see if we would learn more about what had happened here before the end of the book.
That terror that I felt with that first scene continued through the first half of Chapter One as well. And boy were there some spooky parallels to a scene in the first book in this first chapter. It gave me goosebumps while reading, and it’s giving me goosebumps to think about each of the scenes again now while typing up this review!
After the initial dose of terror, the story absolutely did not let up until the very end. Needless to say, I was totally hooked!
Just like the first book, this story made me feel wicked claustrophobic and unsettled throughout. I loved all of the twists and turns as well as the overall sense of dread and fear mixed with a bit of hope.
My only very slight irk was that some of it felt like it went a little too fast. I would have happily read more to really dive into each setting rather than jumping quickly from scene to scene. I’m very curious to see if I feel this way after reading it a second time!
My Favorite Passages from Malorie
She’s scared.
It’s not the nicest thing to realize. Because once it begins, once the initial, hot tendrils tickle your arms and legs, flow down your back and calves, it’s hard to stop the feeling from growing to its full size: panic.
The old constructs of good and bad have long been replaced with safe and unsafe.
My Final Thoughts on Malorie
If you enjoyed the first book, I definitely recommend checking this one out! It was so much fun to see what happened next and get a little bit of closure on things. I certainly walked away from this one feeling satisfied!
Someday soon, I would like to re-read both of these books back to back! Especially after learning some key information toward the end of this one…
I can’t wait for you to read this if you haven’t yet!! Enjoy!
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Thanks for reading!
Have you read this one yet? If so, what did you think?
I’m really looking forward to this. I’m eagerly awaiting my audiobook hold to come in at my library. Great review, Erica!
Wahoo!! I hope you enjoy it!
I really enjoyed this one too! Agreed about some of the pacing though, some of it did feel a bit fast, especially the ending. I would have loved to savor all that emotion 🙂
100%!! The ending came at me so quickly!
I skimmed your review because I DO want to read this. I loved Bird Box. It sounds like a fairly worthy sequel!
-Lauren
Woot! I hope you enjoy it!
I never actually read Bird Box. I ended up watching the Netflix movie with Mr. Barb without reading the book first and then decided I was okay leaving it at that. I am really glad this sequel turned out great for you!
I loved the Bird Box book so much! I think the adaptation was okay, but definitely a “the book was better” situation for me. Now… if I had to pick just one, I’d say the audio book was my favorite! 🙂 It makes it SO creepy to just listen to the story!