California by Edin Lepucki

I tried. I really did.  The premise was certainly a wonderful thing. However, midway into the book I found it to be a bit less in creativity and promise. 

Cal a past student of a college where trade, farming and academic skills are a part of the school landscape. He meets an aloof student  there who is the brother of his future wife. After the "happening" and LA is a disaster zone,  Cal and Frida take off to a place in the dark northern woods to live in a cabin. Frida is pregnant and life is getting harder by they day with their survival. Soon they pack up and venture out to look for a community that ends up being a strange, dark, paranoid world.

I gave up by the time the reached the community. Cal and Frida's relationship has become frayed at the edges making life in a new cultish world less than reasonable separate and as a couple.

I found it to be a dystopian fugue-y kind of nightmare where you are running and not getting anywhere. 

Now, I read copious reviews on this book. I had to as when I do am not sure about a book (especially when I paid for it) I need to know if it was just me and I need to go back at a later date or I seriously need to put it down. Half loved it, half hated it. I was hard pressed to find the in betweenies like me.

I could have finished it, but I decided not to with twinges of guilt. 

Skip it but keep in mind you may like it, it's one of those books.

Bird Box by Josh Malerman

I just read Big Little Lies by Lianne Moriarty and wanted some grit. I scrolled through the Kindle app deciding on Bird Box by Josh Malerman. I was so surprised that I hung in after the first few chapters as I am always tentative with Dystopian books (it is also what I would consider horror, psychological thriller, and Sci Fi.) I tip toe into these frightening future books with a weak stomach, heart palpitations, dear God, this will be US someday which leads to a freeway of neurotic thoughts rendering me quite useless to where I will set the book aside.

Why are we so inclined to read about  Dystopian stories when life is quite crazy enough here in the now? I think it's a basis of what we need to know about survival. Each book I read starting with The Road has provided ideas in my head about surviving any horrible change in circumstance where our little lives change as we know it.

The Story:
Malorie is a pregnant young woman living with her sister, Shannon. Reports are coming in from all over that people are being killed with such gruesome fervor that they decide to stay put in their home. Covering all portals to the outside, they live in this world of not being able to wander outside anymore as the creatures will kill you if you open your eyes. What these creatures are, they don't know.

Unfortunately, Malorie is forced to flee her home and find a house that is a refuge of some sort. She drives with her eyes closed to get there. She finds a group of survivors that take her in.

The book shifts between  four years later with Malorie in a row boat gliding down a river to get to a new place with two children in tow. All blindfolded. Vague references to life before, she continues on down the river with all the twists and turns of a Stephen King novel.

You have no idea what the hell is going on but that was when I finally settled into the book. How is THIS going to work, this blindfold thing, who are these kids, and where are they going... She calls the boy "Boy" and the girl, "Girl." Which is strange. Who are these survivors, who are the creatures, what is going to happen to all of them?? From there I was hooked.

We go back and forth between the river back to the house of an eclectic group of survivors. Here we start to see the dynamics in a group of people and how they function in this new world. And how they do not function.

Later a new person emerges knocking on the door and things start to change.

It's a brilliantly executed story by this smart  young writer. Plot is perfect, characters rich, writing was A+. Seriously. I am not gushing.  I really liked this book because I will never forget it. It is one of those books that sticks to the ribs in your brain.

I hope the author does well in his future. I hope that perhaps he writes more about these characters, though I am not a huge fan of series I would go back and visit them again. I cared about them that much.

Buy it.
Loan it out to your friends.