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auntiejamie 's review for:
Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy--Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance
by Jeff VanderMeer
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
As a combination of three books, the Southern Reach trilogy, this is probably the better way to read them because without being able to dive into the second and third book, the first one is almost intolerable. I found the first book a slog to get through. I had tried reading it once before and was bored with its seemingly impenetrable narrative. I went back to it because friends and fans of books I like recommended this trilogy and mentioned this author as being "a good egg." I'm definitely here to support authors who aren't assholes so I had to give it another go.
The second and third book are still quite cryptic, most notably because of the way the narrative unspools through a changing first, second, and third person perspective of the narrator. The narrators' perspective is almost always imperfect and even when they are speaking with the benefit of hindsight, the writing is carefully constructed to maintain the otherworldliness of the narrative and setting. Strangely, I think the film adaptation of the first book conveys a pretty cool interpretation of the first book's premise and I think it's unfortunate that the second and third book would be too difficult and expensive to adapt in a way that felt meaningfully worthwhile.
I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this one. As a fan of Roadside Picnic, I think the long and meandering prose of this trilogy shows the weakness of this setting as it's incredibly hard to stay interested in it for as long as it was. I found the third book's pacing to be more tolerable, but I'm not sure people should have to read two whole books before they get to a book that finally feels like it found its pacing.
I really wanted to like this trilogy. I liked portions of it a lot. I'm just not sure three books was necessary to convey what made this story good.
The second and third book are still quite cryptic, most notably because of the way the narrative unspools through a changing first, second, and third person perspective of the narrator. The narrators' perspective is almost always imperfect and even when they are speaking with the benefit of hindsight, the writing is carefully constructed to maintain the otherworldliness of the narrative and setting. Strangely, I think the film adaptation of the first book conveys a pretty cool interpretation of the first book's premise and I think it's unfortunate that the second and third book would be too difficult and expensive to adapt in a way that felt meaningfully worthwhile.
I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze on this one. As a fan of Roadside Picnic, I think the long and meandering prose of this trilogy shows the weakness of this setting as it's incredibly hard to stay interested in it for as long as it was. I found the third book's pacing to be more tolerable, but I'm not sure people should have to read two whole books before they get to a book that finally feels like it found its pacing.
I really wanted to like this trilogy. I liked portions of it a lot. I'm just not sure three books was necessary to convey what made this story good.