Audiobook Review: Malorie by Josh Malerman

It's a three from me.

Malorie by Josh Malerman

Published July 2020

Dark Fiction  |  Goodreads  |  Amazon 

Source: Library Borrow 

Now from the mind of a true master of suspense comes the next chapter in Bird Box. This time, Malorie is front and center, and she will confront the dangers of her world head-on.

Twelve years after Malorie and her children rowed up the river to safety, a blindfold is still the only thing that stands between sanity and madness. One glimpse of the creatures that stalk the world will drive a person to unspeakable violence. There remains no explanation. No solution.

All Malorie can do is survive.

But then comes what feels like impossible news. And with it, the first time Malorie has allowed herself to hope. Someone very dear to her, someone she believed dead, may be alive.

Malorie has a harrowing choice to make: to live by the rules of survival that have served her so well, or to venture into the darkness and reach for hope once more.  

My 2 Cents For Free!

Malorie is pretty beloved by many reviewers. It's the sequel to Bird Box which you should read before tackling Malorie. I hate to give it a three because I know people are going to get ragey at me. It might not happen right away but it’ll happen eventually. It always does. How dare YOU?! You have no taste! Your taste! It is atrocious! Did you even read the book? Yeah, my three-star reviews tend to offend people the most and I can’t figure out why that’s even a thing. Three means I basically liked it per the Goodreads scale. Three is a good solid read. Three means I didn’t love and adore and want to marry it but I also didn’t want to murder it and bury it in the backyard either and that’s saying something. So I’m going to be brave and write another dreaded three-star review. 

It’s your last chance to leave.

Still here? Welp, this is on you then. Here it is, my apologies in advance. 

I listened to this book as an unabridged audio. The narrator and the production are good but if you devour audio as quickly as I can, when I’m not being bothered by people that is, you might be better off reading this in paperback. There is a long stretch of internal (and external) agony where there is very little action. This is a very character heavy book which I usually love but something about this one didn’t entirely work for me. Malorie struggles with her fears and the dialogue between herself and her kids felt a bit repetitive. The same doubts and fears and fears and doubts cropped up time and again. Perhaps it was a wee bit too long when it came to that stuff. I get it, I do! Believe it or not! She worries,  she fears, she doubts and she is scared out of her mind all the time and SHE HAS DAMN GOOD REASONS for feeling this way but for me, it was tiresome to hear after a while. I felt like she was beating me to death with reminders of things I already knew. But I am she of very little patience. 

I’m sorry. I tried to warn you. I said it and I mean it and this is only one person’s experience but that is the reason this book gets a 3 instead of a 4. Eventually, things happen and other characters come into the picture and the story starts to move but for too long there I felt stuck in an endless loop. 

The book started out really strong for me and then it skipped ahead a decade. Now the kids are teens and Malorie’s son Tom is starting to defy her a bit. Tom is strong-willed and smart and wants to Live His Life which is a bit of a scary thing in this crazy world they are living in. You survive but you can’t enjoy or truly live without being a little reckless and endangering everyone you love. Tom’s POV is very well written and very understandable. I feel for Malorie because I can’t imagine raising kids in that scenario. She is a strong character who has been enduring this hell for 17 years. Just pondering that is terrifying and all of that comes across fantastically (if a little repetitively). But I also feel for Tom and his need to improve his situation. It’s tough stuff for all of them. 

Later, in the final chapters, it lost me a bit. Two of the reveals which I won’t spoil, had me do a “are you for real right now?!” But the less said about that the better. It’s horror fiction so I understand the fact that you have to accept a certain amount of preposterousness but this one kind of took all the cake and swallowed it up, leaving me feeling a little stunned. 

But it’s nice to be surprised by a book and this one definitely did that, haha. So a three it is but after writing this it’s on the low end of the 3 scale and there ya go. 

⭐⭐⭐