chasingfindsandfun 's review for:

Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer

3.5

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I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The author assumes the reader remembers details from the initial trilogy (published 2014), but a summary here would have been extremely helpful. Maybe that's on me as a reader, but helping your audience find their footing seems like an important aspect to me. So, as a result, I felt very lost for most of the novel. However there were some fantastic descriptions of creepy and unsettling things, very much like what we saw in the previous books. This was the saving grace in my reading experience.
 
Absolution seems to answer some questions asked in the initial trilogy about the beginnings of the Southern Reach, and ask new questions. If you pick this up, do yourself a favor, and re-read the Southern Reach Trilogy or watch a recap on YouTube.