A review by libraryoflanelle
Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer

2.0

I am all for a "WTF did I just read?" book – in fact, they’re usually some of my favourites! Sadly, this book was not the good kind of WTF for me. I bought ‘Annihilation’ (Book 1) earlier this year on the recommendation of a friend. I took the opportunity of the announcement of the surprise fourth book as motivation to finally read ‘The Southern Reach’. While I mostly enjoyed the series as a whole, I feel very strongly that the first book is monumentally better than the rest of the series.

This book is written in three parts, with the final part being my least favourite – it was almost painful to read due to the excessive use of the word ‘f**k’. I use the word all the time and am usually a big fan but goodness, did it feel overused here, in a way that detracted significantly from the narrative for me. Although all three parts had a specific and clear purpose, they were so distinctly separate that I struggled to track the overarching details of the book.

Keep in mind that my experience of this book - and the series as a whole - are on the rarer side, as it seems most people loved this return to Area X. If you’ve read the original trilogy and loved it, then I would definitely encourage you to pick this one up to fill in a few unanswered questions – but be prepared for an equally confusing experience as you learn a lot of completely new things. If you haven’t yet read the series, by all means give it a go, but keep in mind that you’ll probably feel confused throughout and not necessarily in the best way! 

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC. All opinions are my own.