So creepy! Funny thing is, I just finished watching The Last of Us right before I started this book! So the idea of “being infected” with a horrible virus was easy to imagine. This story really deals with our mental health when faced with isolation and how important having physical interactions is. What is the truth and what is madness when the world is falling apart.

This was a challenging piece for me to assess. The initial concept immediately grabbed my attention, as I have a fondness for both Birdbox and The Last of Us. While there were moments that sent a chill down my spine and created a captivating atmosphere, the overall story left me wanting more. I must admit that I nearly considered not completing it.

Despite its brevity as a novella, it still felt excessively verbose. The author employs an abundance of words to convey very little, as the plot of this story unfolds rather slowly. Much of the writing almost comes across as stream of consciousness.

I understand that the author perhaps aimed to emphasize Riley's decline into madness and departure from reality, yet I believe they exerted excessive effort to give it a more literary fiction quality than it truly possesses. If the story were trimmed by approximately one hundred pages or so, I am certain the narrative would flow much more smoothly.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC. I was immediately drawn to the cover, so creepy and interesting. I enjoyed this fast read. I did have a hard time not comparing it to Bird Box for most of the book though. By the end of the book I feel like the author was able to move away from the similarities of bird box and I enjoyed the psychological turmoil that was developed. A few really creepy moments that I enjoyed but I feel like the book ended abruptly.