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After enjoying The Bird Box a great deal, I was eager to get my hands on this sequel by Josh Malerman to see how things progressed. In a story that offers some interesting continuity and progression, Malerman did some things well and others that I could have done without. Malorie has been living at The Jane Tucker School for the Blind over the past number of years. With all the protections in place, her children, Tom and Olympia, have come to accept that this is how things will be forever. When census data comes to the school and Malorie learns that her parents are listed as still alive, she is overjoyed. With a little convincing, she agrees to take Tom and Olympia on the journey to reunite with them. It will be dangerous and the Creatures are still out there, sure to target them. Using as much safety as possible, they begin the journey across Michigan. It is slow and arduous, but Malorie is able to learn a great deal about herself, while also remembering the ‘old days� and living with her family as a girl. When they discover a train system running throughout Michigan, they agree to ride it, though there are soon some revelations that cause things to ‘go off the rails�. Tom exerts his teenage angst relating to the prison in which he feels he lives and Olympia seeks to push boundaries she is sure need a nudge. Will Malorie make it to her family home with her own next generation, or will the Creatures strike her independently-minded children and cause chaos for everyone? An interesting addition to the highly popular novel, though it might be one of the few times I felt a sequel did not pull me in just as much!

There are some novels that end on such a cliffhanger that the reader begs to know more, scrambling to see if another novel will tie things off and provide some closure. While Josh Malerman was surely looking to do that with this follow-up piece, I wonder if this is one sequel that should never have been penned. The attentive reader will always posit what should come next or will likely occur to solve some of the situations that are left dangling, as is common at the end of a novel. The means by which Malerman sought to fill in the gaps and offer his own conclusions (or extend some of the threads) were less exciting for me than I might have hoped. There is a great deal of backstory in this piece when it comes to Malorie, offering the reader some insight into her life as a child and the way in which she grew up. This is projected forward as Malorie must now parent her two children and hope for the best. There are ups and downs throughout, though Malorie has the added worry of Creatures ready to turn her children (or anyone they might encounter) mad and ruin a good thing. There were a number of interesting characters found herein, which kept the story moving along, but I did not feel the creepiness that I had hoped to discover. While I admit the ‘bird was out of the box� in this piece, the wonder and eerie nature of the narrative seemed almost tame and everyone acted as though there was a chance they could live or die, without the worry or paranoia that came front and centre in the first book. While Malerman held my attention throughout, I wanted something more... something scarier that would leave me panting by the end. Instead, I was left nodding my head and wondering if the sequel interpretation might have been better left in the minds of those who adored The Bird Box!

Kudos, Mr. Malerman, for a valiant effort. Alas, I ended up in the review group that was somewhat underwhelmed!

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