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camilleisreading24 's review for:
Marrow Island
by Alexis M. Smith
4.5/5 stars
Wonderful, creepy, atmospheric, environmental mystery, incandescent prose, vivid setting.
20 years ago, the May Day Quake hit Seattle and the surrounding area. Lucie's father, working in an oil refinery on Marrow Island, died when the refinery burned to the ground. She was 13.
When her childhood best friend, Katie, writes to Lucie to tell her that Marrow Island is inhabitable again, Lucie is drawn back to Marrow. Katie is living with a Colony, led by Sister J., whose mission is to detoxify the island through micoremediation (pro-tip: mushrooms). We know from the prologue, however, that Lucie nearly dies during her visit to the island. The story is split between 2014, when Lucie visits the Colony, and 2016, when she is living in a remote Oregon outpost with her park ranger boyfriend and searching for meaning in what happened on Marrow.
I don't want to say more about this here, but it was a tightly plotted and very thoughtful novel. Clearly the author did a great deal of research and the characters have several intelligent conversations about environment disasters, pollution, and human responsibility. I also really loved this book since it was set in the San Juan Islands (which are close to my heart). This book, like Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation," plays on human fear of toxicity and pollution in nature, and how that fear is bound up with our guilt.
Wonderful, creepy, atmospheric, environmental mystery, incandescent prose, vivid setting.
20 years ago, the May Day Quake hit Seattle and the surrounding area. Lucie's father, working in an oil refinery on Marrow Island, died when the refinery burned to the ground. She was 13.
When her childhood best friend, Katie, writes to Lucie to tell her that Marrow Island is inhabitable again, Lucie is drawn back to Marrow. Katie is living with a Colony, led by Sister J., whose mission is to detoxify the island through micoremediation (pro-tip: mushrooms). We know from the prologue, however, that Lucie nearly dies during her visit to the island. The story is split between 2014, when Lucie visits the Colony, and 2016, when she is living in a remote Oregon outpost with her park ranger boyfriend and searching for meaning in what happened on Marrow.
I don't want to say more about this here, but it was a tightly plotted and very thoughtful novel. Clearly the author did a great deal of research and the characters have several intelligent conversations about environment disasters, pollution, and human responsibility. I also really loved this book since it was set in the San Juan Islands (which are close to my heart). This book, like Jeff VanderMeer's "Annihilation," plays on human fear of toxicity and pollution in nature, and how that fear is bound up with our guilt.