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3.27 AVERAGE
3.27 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A book that is as tense as it is thoughful. It keeps suprising and getting even more desperate with every single page, only breifly letting up about once in the entirety of the book. Amazing.
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The prose read like a sledgehammer to a pile of bricks. Made this a read I had to slog through despite the heavy topics it tackles, or rather tries to tackle — it suddenly and just barely veers into sci-fi territory right at the end, and only as the ever prevalent, prose-bogging “maybe this maybe that” implications .
It tries to swing at a lot of things but misses all of them. The summary blurb implies this is a thriller but even withthe continuous violence starting at the “first” narrative climax this is probably the furthest thing from a thriller. It’s slow but not in the “I want to savor this” kind of way, but the “GOD please let this be over” way. And it ends up heading there anyway, full throttle nihilism.
You can’t get me to care more about these characters. The protagonist basically drifts along doing her own thing, everyone else be damned.The general apathy is explained in the narrative to be a result of child abuse, but the character never really develops from that apathetic point. Her narrative POV remains continuously cold and detached from everyone else. Even when she’s describing her affairs it feels like a spectator affair. It just makes this book even more tiresome to read through. At the end when protagonist says she lost everyone she’s loved I was like GOD YES ANYONE COULD’VE SEE THIS COMING ALL ROADS LEAD TO PERDITION.
I hate writing scathing reviews about books, but lord this book was so glammed up with that pretty cover, and a few pages in with that muddy prose and I decided, yeah this book is worth enough of my time that I’m gonna write a review about why I hate it.
It tries to swing at a lot of things but misses all of them. The summary blurb implies this is a thriller but even with
You can’t get me to care more about these characters. The protagonist basically drifts along doing her own thing, everyone else be damned.
I hate writing scathing reviews about books, but lord this book was so glammed up with that pretty cover, and a few pages in with that muddy prose and I decided, yeah this book is worth enough of my time that I’m gonna write a review about why I hate it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Violence, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Medical content
Minor: Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis
It's probably better than the 2-star rating I'm giving it. Maybe 2.5 or 3 stars. But in my rating scale a 3-star is one I'll recommend reading, but not owning and I just don't see myself recommending this to anyone. I thought it was going to be more climate fiction, but it's really a mystery book with a small amount of climate issues thrown in to frame the story. The mystery was pretty fun for the first 75% of the book and I burned through it, but by the end I realized I didn't care that much what the outcome was. Can't recommend.
This was good and worth reading, but also so dark and depressing and exhausting, too much for this moment in time for me.
adventurous
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
fast-paced
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Very Jeff VanderMeer. You must be willing to not understand everything
I love the Annihilation trilogy but I really struggled with this book. The stakes weren’t clear, and I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Even by the end I wasn’t really sure what had just happened.
This was quite a journey to undertake with 'Jane' but well worth it in the end. It allowed my imagination to explore ideas of the natural world, while grounding the plot in the more unsavory aspects of human life today...