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meagan_young's review against another edition
3.0
I’m a big fan of VanderMeer’s other books, so this one was a letdown. It was so slow moving and confusing. The writing style was strange and minimalistic, most sentences didn’t have a subject. It was hard to follow at some points and there was not much to hold on to. I enjoyed his world building, as always, but that was more of the background of this book rather than the forefront. There wasn’t really a character to root for, and the payoff at the end wasn’t worth the journey to get there... pretty disappointed. The only thing to take away from this book was to be aware of our impact on the environment, but there are more interesting books to invest your time in than this one unfortunately.
panfriedcracker's review against another edition
0.5
I guess maybe I expected more from Vandermeer but honestly wow. A pointless shitty story about a shitty person. No likable characters and a purposelessly depressing and unlikable plot. It’s like he had I idea of a thought of what this book would be and just grasped around in the dark for a few hundred pages. If you want good sci-fi that focuses in on animal rights and trafficking, go read “The mountain in the sea” and “The tusks of extinction”. Not what ever this clumsy attempt at saying something about our relationship to nature is. The .5 I’ll give him is that he is a very eloquent writer and is incredible at setting an eerie undertone.
gwynnas's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
liakeller's review against another edition
2.0
So dang strange. Unique writing style. Just bizarre, a bit confusing, slightly disjointed. Reminded me of writings in my philosophy class…. Not recommended.
erinlcrane's review against another edition
4.0
Overall, I enjoyed this read. I really like VanderMeer’s writing, the way he has of phrasing a thought or feeling. That goes a long way for me, so I rated this highly in large part because of that.
I think the plot and pacing struggled. Especially some moments at the end. The convenience of Langer being alive, finding her, and Jack finding her as well and shooting Langer just in time. Felt kind of silly and basic after the rest of the book. And the idea that Silvina created this “ark” and magic elixir pushed believability for me. Again, it felt silly compared to the rest of the book.
It is a bit misleading to call this a thriller. It has its action-y, tense moments, but it’s largely introspective and quiet. That works perfectly for me, but would be a letdown if you wanted something else.
I enjoyed the themes of this book, though. We are at this moment of existential crisis with climate change and yet we continue on like everything will be fine. That our minor tweaks will be good enough, if we do even that. Just steadily moving toward that cliff, ready to fall off to our doom. I actually did not find this book too preachy, but I think others might. I found Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver more of the too didactic type. This book reminded me a LOT of Zazen by Vanessa Veselka, which I also really enjoyed and didn’t find too preachy.
I love that ultimately Silvina was trying to save the world through compassionate means, though I didn’t need as many answers as the end gave me. I just love the hope of it, the attempt to integrate more with the Earth in harmony.
Favorite quotes:
Next year, there would be no conference. A few years later, businesses hawking wares would have changed. The old ones washed away by the shock of realization: the physical laws of the universe didn’t give a fuck about them. Wouldn’t protect them just because they existed and sold things.
Delusional. Naïve. Unworkable. Dangerous. That is what the enemy called the necessities for survival. For flourishing.
I think the plot and pacing struggled. Especially some moments at the end. The convenience of Langer being alive, finding her, and Jack finding her as well and shooting Langer just in time. Felt kind of silly and basic after the rest of the book. And the idea that Silvina created this “ark” and magic elixir pushed believability for me. Again, it felt silly compared to the rest of the book.
It is a bit misleading to call this a thriller. It has its action-y, tense moments, but it’s largely introspective and quiet. That works perfectly for me, but would be a letdown if you wanted something else.
I enjoyed the themes of this book, though. We are at this moment of existential crisis with climate change and yet we continue on like everything will be fine. That our minor tweaks will be good enough, if we do even that. Just steadily moving toward that cliff, ready to fall off to our doom. I actually did not find this book too preachy, but I think others might. I found Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver more of the too didactic type. This book reminded me a LOT of Zazen by Vanessa Veselka, which I also really enjoyed and didn’t find too preachy.
I love that ultimately Silvina was trying to save the world through compassionate means, though I didn’t need as many answers as the end gave me. I just love the hope of it, the attempt to integrate more with the Earth in harmony.
Favorite quotes:
Next year, there would be no conference. A few years later, businesses hawking wares would have changed. The old ones washed away by the shock of realization: the physical laws of the universe didn’t give a fuck about them. Wouldn’t protect them just because they existed and sold things.
Delusional. Naïve. Unworkable. Dangerous. That is what the enemy called the necessities for survival. For flourishing.
magneticwave's review against another edition
2.0
not my favorite hentai of pennywise that’s for sure
snd1101's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
jadom's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
alexbthelibrarian's review against another edition
4.0
I received an eARC copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
I’ll be honest, this review was going to be more like a 3 star until I sat and digested the novel for 24 hours. This one, as Troy would say, wrinkled my brain.
For the first 150 pages, I was so confused and lost as to why the narrator even cared about the mystery of Silvina. It was long and boring and I could not concentrate on the story because I wasn’t sure why I cared. The last half of the book, however, not only answered most of those questions, but made me aware of why I disliked the first half of the book so much!
With most books, authors create a main character or narrator the reader can relate to. In this book, however, I found myself disliking the narrator more and more as the story continued. When I hit the halfway point and more towards the end, I understood why. The author really pushed this book and this narrator I could not connect with, and created an interesting and still confusing story.
I found this to not be my favorite book by Jeff VanderMeer, however, still worth a read if you like mystery/thrillers and brutally honest scenarios.
I’ll be honest, this review was going to be more like a 3 star until I sat and digested the novel for 24 hours. This one, as Troy would say, wrinkled my brain.
For the first 150 pages, I was so confused and lost as to why the narrator even cared about the mystery of Silvina. It was long and boring and I could not concentrate on the story because I wasn’t sure why I cared. The last half of the book, however, not only answered most of those questions, but made me aware of why I disliked the first half of the book so much!
With most books, authors create a main character or narrator the reader can relate to. In this book, however, I found myself disliking the narrator more and more as the story continued. When I hit the halfway point and more towards the end, I understood why. The author really pushed this book and this narrator I could not connect with, and created an interesting and still confusing story.
I found this to not be my favorite book by Jeff VanderMeer, however, still worth a read if you like mystery/thrillers and brutally honest scenarios.
ihateprozac's review against another edition
2.0
Wtf did I just read?
If you’re going to write a story this cryptic and deliberately opaque, you need to dish out more puzzle pieces along the way to keep the reader engaged. At the 30% mark I rapidly started to lose interest because I couldn’t tell where the story was going, and if there were even any stakes that I should care about.
I adooooored the Southern Reach trilogy in all its cryptic and confusing moments, because I had a clear sense of something big going on. With Hummingbird Salamander, there were so few signposts along the way and I often felt like I was reading the slowest cartel thriller known to man.
I really liked how it ended, but I could’ve done without the 150 pages in the middle. This would’ve been far more effective as a novella!
If you’re going to write a story this cryptic and deliberately opaque, you need to dish out more puzzle pieces along the way to keep the reader engaged. At the 30% mark I rapidly started to lose interest because I couldn’t tell where the story was going, and if there were even any stakes that I should care about.
I adooooored the Southern Reach trilogy in all its cryptic and confusing moments, because I had a clear sense of something big going on. With Hummingbird Salamander, there were so few signposts along the way and I often felt like I was reading the slowest cartel thriller known to man.
I really liked how it ended, but I could’ve done without the 150 pages in the middle. This would’ve been far more effective as a novella!