Right from the beginning, I was interested in what was happening, and I wanted my eyes to read faster. They're not great at that, especially since I can't really have my eyeballs do some stretchy lunges to warm up first, which annoyed me. Bird Box takes ideas from horror that we've seen before and presents them differently. I remember the 2008 film Blindness, starring Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, in which everyone goes blind (except Moore), but we don't know why. It's terrifying because you have all these people packed into a small space, but as helpless and vicious as an abused dog that shows up at the pound. However, I felt Russo being able to see ruined the film a bit. The terror has to affect everyone equally. In Bird Box, we're not sure what's causing it, but something makes people go insane when they see....it. Malorie's character finds her way into a home with four men and one woman (which worried me instantly; I've seen 28 Days Later) and is three months pregnant. The thing that struck me was her pregnancy was unplanned, but she kept it. That's fine, but because there's an unborn baby growing in the middle of the apocalypse, one Malorie didn't plan for, I didn't find her pregnancy a reason to sympathize with her. Malerman could have easily used Malorie's condition as a way for me to care about her regardless of her personality, but he doesn't which I appreciated. Women are more than transport for babies: they have personalities, make decisions, use their bodies to work and think, etc. There are hints as to what is causing the blindness. It's something the characters have to see, it can get into houses, and by the end of the book we know it can touch people, so it must be some kind of alien or monster, not just pollen (is that what it was in The Happening?) or a light of sorts (think Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark). The more I knew about what was driving people to kill themselves, the less I wanted to know. My imagination is so much scarier than words on a page. All of us are capable of the scariest thoughts because it's individual. An alien doesn't scare me, neither does a demon. Something I can't see or feel, does. Yet, a monster or alien may be the most terrifying thing ever to you! Isn't that neat of our brains, being so individually cruel? :)

The emergence of Gary-the-basement-dweller confused things because he can see the creatures. Why? Why does he get to be different? While it's scary that he gets that power, he's much like Julianne Moore's character getting a free pass

. Overall, the book was hard to put down, and I was afraid for the way humans changed as time passed in an age without sight.