In this eco thriller, “Jane” is given a clue in the form of a rare taxidermy of a hummingbird. This is the story of what she learns, who else is after the same knowledge and the danger that it puts her in.

While I appreciated the story and the important message that it included, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the book. The environmental dangers kind of bummed me out because they exist in the real world and it gave me a kind of hopeless feel. Also, the book is written in the form of an anonymous memoir kind of. The anonymousness of it and all of the nicknames kind of confused me at times.

However, I think if this had been a genre I normally read, I would have enjoyed it more. The writing was good and I did want to know what was going to happen next.

Thank you NetGalley for the copy for my honest review.

Our protagonist who goes by the pseudonym "Jane Smith" is grabbing a cup of joe at her usual haunt when a barista hands her an envelope with a key, an address, and the number 7. Where'd this mysterious bundle come from? The barista doesn't know, it was given to a barista on a previous shift and passed along. Jane wracks her brain in an attempt to determine who might have wanted her to have said envelope and why, but she comes up short. Curiosity gets the better of her and she heads to the address to discover its a storage facility owned by Silvina Vilcapampa, the daughter of an Argentinian "industrialist" who you know made his billions via sketchy and shady practices. Storage locker #7 contains a taxidermied hummingbird. Still confused as to what's what, "Jane" continues to follow cryptic clues to dig herself deeper and deeper into this mystery that started out as a curiosity and quickly delves into dangerous territory that risks the life of "Jane" and those close to her.

This book started out strong. The description of "tightly plotted thriller full of unexpected twists and elaborate conspiracy" fit the bill for the first ~50 pages or so (I have an e-book ARC that doesn't list pages, so that's a rough guess). VanderMeer did a great job of sparking my interest early with the discovery of the puzzling hummingbird right off the bat followed by a doing a thorough (but not overly so) job of setting the scene. The reader learns that "Jane" is a (seemingly) happily married mother of a teenager, a former wrestler/body builder, and a security analyst - the latter putting her in a unique position to be able to research the Vilcampa name in an under-the-radar way.

But after a solid start, this book fell flat for me. Although we get a good surface level description of our narrator, it was difficult to relate to her on a personal level. It was completely nonsensical that this woman would continue to pursue this mystery once it got to the level that it risked her job, her marriage, her relationships, her life, and the lives of everyone around her. Especially since she had no idea why Silvina chose her to be the recipient of the taxidermied animals nor what the end game was. There are hundreds of pages devoted to descriptions of endangered/extinct animals, reading passages from Silvina's diary, and descriptions of detailed and unnecessary research done into the Vilcampa family. Additionally, the narrator goes on a lot of seemingly wild goose chases that don't move the story forward in the moment - they seem like dead ends at the time, and the reader doesn't realize each "dead end" produces one small useful chunk of information that doesn't show its worth until the end. I find thrillers much more engaging when the plot moves like: thing A happens, which directs the narrator to thing B, which subsequently leads to thing C. In Hummingbird Salamander, it was more like: thing A happens in a drawn out manner and seems to produce nothing useful, then, unrelated to thing A, thing B happens... which is also drawn out and appears to be another dead end. And it's not until the final chapters that thing A and thing B reveal their worth to the reader. Another reason I found this book to be less-than-engaging is the sheer quantity of characters and my inability to discern who was of importance and who would just... fall out of the story with no resolution as to why they appeared in the story in the first place.

Towards the end when the narrator flips back and forth between describing her childhood and the present day, it became pretty clear her past would be connected to her present in some fashion. I became more engaged at this point of the story and was eager to understand how it'd all come together. And I felt satisfied how everything from her past and this hummingbird/salamander chase was resolved. However, the end-end to this book was open ended and (to me) a bit head scratching.

“Hummingbird Salamander” by Jeff VanderMeer was a fast-paced thriller that kept me guessing what would happen next and who could and couldn’t be trusted. It was a thought-provoking book about what could happen if we continue to forge ahead with our desire for greater technology and creature comforts with little regard for the effects on our environment and individual freedoms.
There is impressive artwork within the book that adds to the enjoyment of “Hummingbird Salamander.”
“Hummingbird Salamander’s ” main character was so different from the heroines you typically read about in books. She is a large woman—a former wrestler. She is flawed. Suspicious of everyone and everything, even the reader, she doesn’t give us her real name. Is it Jane? Is it Jill?
We learn more about the woman whose ghost she is chasing, Silvina, the daughter of an Argentine industrialist who is a radicalized activist. Many consider her an ecoterrorist. Silvina leaves “Jane,” a taxidermized hummingbird and a cryptic message in a storage locker.
Soon, Jane is prepared to abandon everything—her job, home, husband, daughter, everything she thought she knew and believed, in search of the truth.
Written in the first-person point-of-view, “Hummingbird Salamander” often feels like a tour through someone’s brain. The author captures the manic thoughts of a woman on the run exceptionally well. Unfortunately, this can make it difficult to follow at times. We meet many characters described in multiple ways, often with more than one name to start, as Jane decides how to keep their identities secret from anyone who might find her account.
The plot is complex and well crafted, yet at times, challenging to follow. Early on, I wanted more convincing as to why Jane would so easily give up everything searching for the truth. By the end, it all made sense. I loved the ending. This is one of those books that really pays off in the end.
I am sure it could feel preachy regarding the environment and what we are doing to it. But I knew that was part of the premise going into the book and agree with the author’s stance, so it didn’t bother me, but I could see how it could be over the top for many readers.
Do I recommend this book? Yes! UNLESS you don’t like complex plots and don’t believe in climate change. Then, it probably isn’t for you.
I give “Hummingbird Salamander” 4 stars!
Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, for providing a complimentary copy of “Hummingbird Salamander” in exchange for an honest review.

Not your grandad’s gumshoe – A review of Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff Vandermeer
I’m certainly no crime noir expert but I’m pretty sure when Chandler, Spillane and Hammett were writing about dames and gumshoes, they weren’t expecting them to be one and the same. Here Vandermeer has stepped into just that scenario with Hummingbird Salamander.

“Jane Smith” aka Jill is Vandermeers’ Continental Op or his Nameless (both a series of detective stories where the protagonists name is never mentioned). In this tale, however Jane is telling the story and has her reasons for being anonymous. Yet it is truly Vandermeers wonderful way a creating a truly intriguing character, but I’ll get to that.

Jane is a securities analyst who after a stint as a bodybuilder and wrestler decided she rather enjoyed statistics. Imagine her surprise when a barista at her local coffee shop hands her a a mysterious note with ever so slightly familiar words belonging to her past thrusting her into a scavenger hut with world devastating consequences. With taxidermied extinct animals, animal trafficking, eco-terrorists and family histories all coming into play, Jane must decipher the clues to get closer to understanding her Hummingbird Salamander.

I truly enjoyed the mystery and the plot, both unfurling at a purposeful pace. What I recommend this book for beyond that and truly what my praise is focused on is the authors ability to create a character who everything we learn about her is revealed in the most creative of ways. Jane will not simply tell us about her family, their names or even their occupation, everything is “lets call it x” or “it’s similar too”. Nothing is ever given to us as Fact. In this way Vandermeer is able to create this amorphous sort of character in short bursts of description in very crime noir fashion, but giving us what we need to know through her thoughts as we have to discern if whose telling us everything is a trustworthy; but you get the sense that what’s important to her as a person is true and revealed accordingly whether or not we truly know her name or where she lives etc.

Jane is also a wonderfully original creation. She a hulk of a woman, not all too pretty (at least in her eyes), not the best at family or love. She can put the hurt on many a man and she can certainly take a beating. She’s curt, no nonsense and good at what she does but never perfect. Jane isn’t Bond, and neither is she a pixie dream girl. Jane is written as someone who we root for, for her endeavors not her ethics or her percent wold is shattered and we want her to get all that back, but for her tenacity and her rawness. All that said my favorite character is the boxing gym owner, reason being he’s simply another wonderful trope put on it’s head.

I truly recommend picking this up.

I would like to extend a thank you to #netgalley for granting me an ARC for the purposes of this review. #hummingbirdsalamnder

A complex and confusing eco-thriller with a stunning end. "Jane", a security analyst, is given a key to a storage unit as she is leaving a coffee shop. What she does next sets off a pattern of death, destruction, and mystery as she works to unravel the clues of the hummingbird and salamander. Although the writing is cryptic, it is so powerful you will keep turning the pages. The pace of the book was slow at times but then it would flow into danger, action, and suspense.

A deep sense of nature, preserving the natural world, and man's destruction is prevalent throughout. I appreciated the author's ability to keep the environment in the forefront of the plot. At times a difficult read but worth it! Recommended for fans of Jeff VanderMeer, speculative, and eco-thrillers.

Thanks to NetGalley, Jeff VanderMeer, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing for an advanced eBook copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5/5.0 Stars

The opening chapter in the novel HUMMINGBIRD SALAMANDER, an eco-thriller—is written in a ‘What if?’ scenario using the second-person point-of-view, placing you Dear Reader in a coffee shop, recipient of a mysterious envelope drawing you into the narrative.

Do you take it?

Vandermeer’s lead by way of his writing is deliciously dark, mysterious, and had this reader effectively tethered.

Here’s a sample:

‘Standing there on the sidewalk. Black slush of snow pushed to the sides of the street. A dead robin in the gutter, one torn wing spread toward the drain like an invitation to the underworld.’

‘Another winter morning in a city in the Pacific Northwest.
Where, exactly?
I won’t tell you.
Who am I?
I won’t tell you. Exactly.
But you can call me Jane.
Jane Smith. If that helps.
I’m here to show you how the world ends.’

The unreliable narrator security consultant ‘Jane Smith’ is given a mysterious envelope that contains a note and key to a storage unit, wherein she finds a cardboard box that contains a taxidermied hummingbird and clues left by a woman named Silvina.

Lured by the mystery and obsession to know more about Silvina, Jane sets into motion a chain of events that put her and her family in danger.

‘I didn’t know anymore if Silvina was a false beacon. The kind that wrecked you on the rocks. But she shone so darkly in my imagination. The only light I had to guide me.’

‘As [Jane] desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out―for her and possibly for the world.’

Recommend!

Thank you, NetGalley and MCD Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, for loaning me an eGalley of HUMMINGBIRD SALAMANDER in the request for an honest review.

This book was alright. Nothing too exciting happened. I was not a fan of how the story was told. I like the conversation that this story invokes but I wanted more to it.

This is my first book from Jeff VanderMeer. I was interested in reading it after hearing the author talk at the MacMillan Spring preview. I am so glad that I did get the chance to read this one.

Personally, I have been reading a lot of thrillers lately and I'm starting to get a bit of burnout with the genre. Hummingbird Salamander is so different from anything I have ever read in this genre that I couldn't put it down. It was so different, so strange, so intriguing, and so very well done that I am considering going back and checking out some of VanderMeer's other books.

Hummingbird Salamander has all of the classic thriller/mystery plot devices in it, but they all have what I have been reassured is a distinctly Jeff VanderMeer spin to them.

Many thanks for this advanced copy. Review posted at BookBrowse: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/reviews/index.cfm/ref/pr271872 should suffice.

Hummingbird Salamander is Jeff VanderMeer’s newest work, and it may also be his most accessible. Certainly it’s his least strange, though admittedly with VanderMeer that’s not saying much. Though if he’s working in more familiarly popular territory — the thriller novel — there’s no doubt VanderMeer puts his own stamp on the genre, whether he’s working within its tropes or subverting them.

Chapter One opens ominously enough, as any good thriller should — “Assume I’m dead by the time you read this” — and ends even more so — “I’m here to show you how the world ends.” The stakes have clearly been set. Our narrator, who won’t tell us her real name, offering up “Jane Smith” as her none-too-imaginative alternative, is seemingly set in her life when the story begins. Well-paying job in security, husband, daughter, nice house in the suburbs, a pleasant backyard. But Jane, as is often the case with VanderMeer protagonists, doesn’t rest comfortably in the world (Jane, for instance, is a big muscular woman, a former weightlifter, and, in a representative detail, she buys all her suits custom-made because “Nothing store-bought fit right.” Toss in some childhood trauma, a long-dead brother she’s never gotten over, and it doesn’t take much to tip her out of her comfy, settled life. After the tip comes the fall, and a deep, prolonged fall it is.

What sets her on her path is a mysterious envelope with a key in it, which leads her eventually to her a box with a taxidermized hummingbird (an extinct one, to add to the mystery) and a simple note: “Hummingbird Salamander — Silvina.” Silvina, it turns out, is the estranged eco-terrorist daughter of a corporate patriarch who himself is none-too-concerned about the law. In her attempt to figure out the mystery of the box’s contents, the note, and of Silvina herself, amidst a number of violent and at times lethal encounters, Jane will end up sacrificing everything: job, family, her life entire.

As noted, the basic tropes of the thriller are all here: mysterious messages, rising stakes, fisticuffs, gun battles, chase scenes, betrayals, a sense of paranoia, cold-blooded killers, government secrets, and more. And VanderMeer handles them all fine. But he also undermines those genre patterns as well. The tick-tock urgency of most thrillers, for instance, seems at first to be checked off the list, but then VanderMeer almost scornfully tosses it aside as Jane’s quest meanders through months then years, the mission wandering like Lear wondering around the plain, though with neither Lear’s nor the accompanying storm’s energy. No fury or thunder but more a kind of diffuse enervation. Hardly, in other words, the usual pulse-pounding thriller mode.

It's fun to read VanderMeer use and also play with the genre, and the story itself is solid, even if there are a few moments where one probably doesn’t want to think too long about them from a pure plotting sense, but honestly, I don’t go to VanderMeer for plot so much as I do for his themes, his style, his use of symbol and metaphor and imagery. And if Hummingbird Salamander didn’t deliver in as stunning a fashion as some of my favorites by him (Dead Astronauts, Borne, the SOUTHERN REACHES trilogy for instance), there’s still great pleasure to be had.

In my favorites of his, VanderMeer’s language is lyrical, poetic, baroque at times, elliptical often. Here though, in tune with the noir/thriller mode, he’s clipped the wings of his style, offering up a spare, sparse, bitten off language, though he gives himself some wiggle room in Silvina’s journals and a few other areas. Truth be told, I miss the usual stylistic flair of prior works, but it’s hard to argue against his choice here.

His use of layered ideas, symbols, and echoes remains though, some admittedly less subtle than others, as when Silvina has to take shelter in a mound of rotting pelts. Another example is the number of references to façades or illusions. Our narrator, of course, from the outset gives us a fake name, and does so with all the people she introduces. Time and again people pretend to be what they are not. Taxidermy, a running presence, can be viewed as a forgery of life. New Yorkers have taken to wearing masks to hide their identities from facial recognition. Jane’s job, cybersecurity, is often, as she tells us, a mere illusion of security. All of this, I think, relating at least in some fashion to the way we hide the truth from ourselves, the way we dutifully toss our bottles into the recycling bin and call ourselves good stewards even as we pick up our phones and drink our coffee while lying to ourselves about where they come from, what they cost the world. I’d make an argument as well that all that disappears from Jane’s life (through her own choices and actions) —husband, daughter, other people, her job, all this loss that leaves her in a hollow, lonely world, is an echo of what is happening to us as we bring about another mass extinction, leaving us to wander an ever more empty landscape.

The concept of ecological deprivation and disaster is by now, of course, hardly a surprise in VanderMeer’s work, and it is in full force in Hummingbird Salamander, as one might have guessed with Silvina (even her name Silvina—Sylvan points that way) being an eco-terrorist. It appears directly in the way it drives the plot, and through Silvina’s diaries and videos, quoted at length throughout the novel, as when we get, here, the moment of her epiphany:

In the moment of seeing the hummingbird, I began to weep with the beauty of it . . . I identified the bird and realized how rare the species was and headed toward extinction, and what I had borne witness to wasn’t just a minor miracle, but, in fact, a moment that would replicate only another hundred or another thousand times . . . a naiad hummingbird would only come to the ground to drink a finite number of times before they no longer existed.
‘This thought was unconscionable to me. Unbearable. It ripped me in two. It destroyed me. And then remade me, and I became someone different than before.’

It comes as well in quoted passages from a horrific book (a real one), entitled Oddly Enough: From Animal Land to Furtown. In reference to big events outside the plot: raging wildfire across the globe, a climate-refugee ship in its own “voyage of the damned,” a slowing Gulf Stream, floods, cyclones, frack-quakes, oil spills, pandemics, pollution masks, a funny color sky. But it also sneaks in to the everyday, into the mundane, as VanderMeer isn’t going to take the easy route by pointing accusatory fingers at big corporations or unaware politicians. Jane, and through Jane all of us, are just as culpable. When she (we) buys her expensive coats and doesn’t “think much about where the softness came from, or what it cost.” When they (we) get their Christmas tree, “cut down so it could be adorned with plastic and glass baubles that pollute the house.” When she (we) used her phone “made from rare-earth elements extracted” in ruinous, often corrupt fashion. The lawn service that “spew [ed] herbicide.” All of it easy to turn a “willfully” blind eye to in our day-to-day comforts, until like Silvina we experience (or are forced into) an awakening of sorts, when we ask the same question Jane asks of herself: “How did I not see the damage for so long?”

Like Silvina, once awakened, Jane cannot go back. Can’t close her eyes again, can’t unsee what she’s seen, unhear what she’s heard, unlearn what she’s learned. Though one has to wonder if this is wishful thinking on VanderMeer’s part, as we have been shown this, told this, learned this so many times in so many ways, and yet most of us still manage to live our ways in the same fashion we always have, albeit with perhaps a bit more guilt.

Like Silvina, VanderMeer is trying to break through what she terms “the fatal adaption,” the way we learn to “care less” because “to care more meant putting a bullet in your brain.” It may be a quixotic, even Sisyphean task, but I for one am thankful VanderMeer has readied his lance or set shoulder to boulder yet again.

This was my first book by Jeff VanderMeer. And it's a clever, clever one, which I'm still thinking about.
You have to be in a special kind of mindset for Hummingbird Salamander- it is enigmatic, confusing, thought-provoking and complex. I didn't find it easy to get into the story (too many run-of-the-mill, predictable thrillers recently), but the writing was so good that I just had to continue trying to wrap my mind around this mystery. It is as if the book had a special kind of rhythm, keeping me alert and paying close attention, and then dulling my senses with the foreshadowing I wasn't ready for. Eventually, everything becomes clear and you see how well-plotted this book is. My biggest enemy were my own expectations of what the book is going to be about or rather how it is going to approach me- appeal to my emotions? logic? current events? Well-played...

'Jane Smith' is a security systems analyst. There aren't many women in her position and she seems to enjoy her work. The story begins with Jane receiving an envelope, left for her in her favourite bar by a mysterious customer. Inside the envelope there is a key to a storage unit and a note from a woman called Silvina. Intrigued by the note implying that Silvina is dead, Jane visits the storage unit and finds a box with a taxidermied hummingbird that belongs to a very rare, now extinct species. Jane discovers that Silvina was a very unusual person, an alleged bioterrorist. Jane takes up the challenge set in Silvina's note, although it quickly becomes apparent that she might have got herself into something very dangerous.

Jane is a unique character in many ways and I'm not talking about her striking appearance, which I will remember. For most of the book you are led to believe she has this strange emotional disconnect from the world she lives in - her family, her parents, her colleagues. Is it really so? She keeps dropping hints at some future events and talking to you about the change that is happening in her, but you are caught in all the smoke and mirrors of the thriller part, until the true meaning of the journey from the hummingbird to the salamander and back is revealed.

It isn't easy to classify this book- an ecological thriller? mystery? noir? conspiracy? sci-fi? There are some very pertinent questions about our world and its future and there are some profound philosophical reflections. As you keep reading, you get more and more pieces to help you understand the protagonist and you are drawn more and more into the story. Just go along with the author's brilliant writing. I promise you the book is one of a kind.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

DNF

This unfortunately didn't work for me and I can't quite pinpoint why, other than it was likely a leap I should have never taken. I desperately want to like VanderMeer's novels, but Annialation just kind of worked for me and this just didn't.

The story follows a narrator who is going by a pseudonym and is directed by an apparently dead person to a taxidermy of a hummingbird, this is followed by a salamander thus our title and the novel really picks up as the narrator and her families lives are at risk and this is all set off by her discovering the hummingbird.

The writing in this is fine and VanderMeer definitely knows how to weave a web, the plot moves at a decent enough pace that I think will work for most people. Where the novel finally lost me is simply the narrators voice. I couldn't relate to her, I don't understand why she's both telling us exactly what happened while simultaneously being cagey. It just felt like too much to spend 300+ pages dealing with.

A brilliantly written book. A mom goes on a journey to save something bigger than herself. It is filled with intrigue and deceit. The author does an awesome job of of building the tension as the reader tries to determine who the good or bad guys are. It shows how much a parent who loves her child will be willing to do to protect her.

This was my first Jeff VanderMeer novel and, unfortunately, it was not a great read for me. I spent most of the book either not loving the main character, Jane, or being confused on what was happening or not happening. The story lagged a bit until towards the end and the plot was ok but confusing. If you like mystery I would say still give this a try though.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher/author for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

VanderMeer never fails to impress me. I love the writing style and the speculative nature. I'm a lifelong fan and no one can convince me otherwise! I've been able to recommend VanderMeer's titles to countless patrons to great success.

I really did not enjoy this book at all, which was a bit of a disappointment, as I was very excited to see this author's name pop up on here. I have really loved his writing style in the past, but for this book, I felt bored and lost and just kept waiting for the dots to connect and I do not feel like they ever did for me.

"Security consultant “Jane Smith” receives an envelope with a key to a storage unit that holds a taxidermied hummingbird and clues leading her to a taxidermied salamander. Silvina, the dead woman who left the note, is a reputed ecoterrorist and the daughter of an Argentine industrialist. By taking the hummingbird from the storage unit, Jane sets in motion a series of events that quickly spin beyond her control.

Soon, Jane and her family are in danger, with few allies to help her make sense of the true scope of the peril. Is the only way to safety to follow in Silvina’s footsteps? Is it too late to stop? As she desperately seeks answers about why Silvina contacted her, time is running out—for her and possibly for the world."

This was a weird and at times, confusing book and I loved every dark second of it. It's thought provoking and brilliant. Well done, Jeff VanderMeer.

Eco-Terror in a Dying World

If you believe 2020 was difficult to survive, welcome to VanderMeer’s new novel which possibly guarantees a future where no one survives. The opening piqued my interest immediately when “Jane Smith” reflexively accepts an envelope. Inside the envelope is a key, an address and the number 7. Jane is a security expert and knowingly follows the clues; she cannot help herself.

A woman named Silvina has left this coded message with the purpose to show Jane how the world ends. I was not surprised to discover that some real bad guy (not entirely bad) and his not entirely bad daughter are stripping forests and rustling wildlife. Throw in some bombs, too, and exploding heads, and it will lead the reader to a tumultuous and

There’s plenty of evil here if you enjoy reading about malicious immorality. “Jane” was a pleasant surprise. She is tech-savvy and good with a gun. This is not my kind of genre but it is smooth and well-written – and depressing, of course.

My gratitude to NetGalley and Farrar, Strauss and Grioux for this pre-published book. My opinions are my own..

2 stars

It's a rare occasion when I mark a book under three stars, but for me, this novel reads like a creepy _The Crying of Lot 49_ imposter. This looming impression became nearly frightening when I realized that the Unitopia diagram includes an abstract Trystero symbol, but that's fun trivia, not the defining moment.

I loved the film version of _Annihilation_ and have been wanting to read VanderMeer for years, so when this arc came up - thank you NetGally and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for what has definitely become a memorable read for better or worse - I was thrilled to be approved. However, the honest review I need to provide in exchange is nothing like I hoped it would be.

Though some reviewers lament the irritatingly unreliable narrator, I am not so much bothered by this. The narrator - whose name remains vague and mysterious - is problematic for a different reason; she's completely unlikeable. If the argument is that the world will end if we don't get ourselves together, then it is helpful to have someone to root for in this situation. If this narrator is the chosen representation of our society, maybe we are ready for a refresh.

In graduate school, I had a professor who experienced something so strange: periodic deposits of half-eaten bags of chips on their front porch. For years, this confounded and disturbed them. While I thought it was both hilarious and bizarre that they would live with the mystery (this was awhile ago, so the home surveillance situation was tougher but still), I am equally fascinated by how a key and a taxidermized hummingbird resulted in...this. There's a happy medium between potato chip terror and the attempted epic quest in this work, I'm sure.

I loved the concept and description, and I couldn't wait for an opportunity to get into some ecocritical excitement, but I am leaving this feeling like there was a strong desire to write The Crying of Lot 50. This whole work fell flat for me, and I'm quite disappointed by that. I'll return to VanderMeer, but this is not the one.

I love Jeff VanderMeer, and this book has such an exciting and interesting premise, but I found it just was not what I was looking for. I spent most of it being very confused about the plot and what was and wasn’t happening, and unfortunately didn’t finish it. I think if you really like mysteries, this is still worth reading.