After temporarily losing his sight in a triffid incident, this novel’s protagonist, Bill, feels lucky that he was unable to see, what was originally thought to be, a beautiful meteor shower that ended up blinding the majority of the earth’s inhabitants and turned out to be the beginning of the end of the world. Bill, after waking in hospital and certainly not expecting to be one of the last people in the world who has sight, is forced to start a new life. But he encounters many obstacles as he tries to find the right group to settle with and, of course, he has to face those pesky triffids who now roam free.
I can understand why this book is considered a classic. There are many questions that the story makes you ask yourself; mainly orientated around the situation that the survivors are in and what effect this has on their actions. This is why I like apocalyptic novels. I find that characters become who they were truly meant to be in these novels. Following on from this, I really loved the two main characters, Bill and Josella. They were two individuals who probably wouldn’t have been friends before the apocalypse but because of the desperate 
situation that they find themselves in they are brought together. And their relationship is a ray of sunshine within this apocalyptic disaster.
Bill and Josella’s relationship ended up becoming my main motivation for finishing this book. The middle, for me, was a little bland but Bill’s continued determination to find Josella, after they lose each other during an incident with another group of sighted survivors, was my main reason for reading to the end.
I have seen the most recent TV adaptation (I think it was the BBC’s) but it was quite a while ago and, for some reason, it’s merging in my head with the film 28 Days Later. I guess they just have similar stories. Anyway, I’m pretty sure there was more triffid action in the TV version. Up until about 30 pages before the end of the book I found that the triffid’s contribution was fairly minimal. Personally, I wouldn’t have called the novel The Day of the Triffids; more like, The Day of a Detrimental Meteor Shower with a Bit of Triffid Inconvenience. It was only towards the end that the triffids became a real problem for Bill and his companions.
Those last 30 pages were also my favourite not only because of the increased triffid action but also because it was set a few years after the apocalypse. I liked how Wyndham was able to develop the characters’ story so we could see how they could rebuild their lives. They were also able to look back at the event in hindsight and question what happened which was most intriguing because they each had varying theories.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Day of the Triffids; I loved the characters and the questions that came out of the story. Although, because it was a little bland in the middle, I’m going to give it…
Rating = 4 stars.
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