Reading Box files in Python through API without downloading

I have created a Box App and enabled the necessary permissions for reading and writing files in folders. Is it possible to read the content of .doc/.docx files using Box API without downloading the files using API?

The Box API gives me the content encoded in bytes (via .content()). How can I decode the content to a string? I tried things like .decode(utf-8) but that didn't work, any suggestions?

Any help is very much appreciated!