25. Bird Box by Josh Malerman

read the book - received from @Kaye - Listsy  #Passport
2014, Ecco
262 pgs.
Adult Dystopia/Horror
Finished 3/17/18
Goodreads rating:3.98 - 49,950 ratings
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Anywhere, USA contemporary (dystopian) times

First line/s: " Malorie stands in the kitchen, thinking.
     Her hands are damp.  She is trembling.  She taps her toe nervously on the cracked tile floor.  It is early; the sun is probably only peeking above the horizon.  She watches its meaager light turn the heavy window drapes of softer shade of black and thinks,
     That was a fog.
     The children sleep under chicken wire draped in black cloth down the hall.  Maybe they heard her moments ago on her knees in the yard.  Whatever noise she made must have traveled through the microphones, then the amplifiers that sat beside their beds."

My comments: This is not a book I would have ordered, or bought, or borrowed.  Its blurbs, reviews, and summaries sound too scary and disconcerting.  But the book was put in my hands and I opened it and read the first short chapter.  I was immediately hooked.  It's sad. It's depressing.  But it's fascinating.  Apparently it's being made into a movie and I can't imagine how that could be done successfully because so much of it takes place in the total absoluteness of darkness, blindfolded or eyes-shut darkness. Yes, it's going to be a scary movie, and yes, I'm going to go see it!

Goodreads synopsis: 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.