mage4mage

This book was so wonderfully written and constructed. I didn't know what to expect beyond what was given in the blurb on the cover, and it just exceeded all expectations. It's probably one of the most convincing and well-planned out books in first person point-of-view I have read in a long while. It's meant to be read as if you are reading a journal the character has written in, and VanderMeer keeps information regarding other characters, and events the heroine does not fully understand, sparse and vague, just enough to make you curious and spur you to read more.

The horrors of the story are in the fact so many horrifying things are left just barely explained, just enough to let you imagine something terrifying. By the end, you have more questions than answers, but I did not think this was unsatisfying. It makes you more interested, with a stronger desire to pick up the next book and see what happens next, what gets explained next.

The biologist was also an extremely endearing character, to me at least. She was a very flawed person, but very human, very relatable. There's no way to pin her personality or character down to one or two words to represent traits. She is the biologist, and there is so much to her.

I started the second book today and it looks like I'm going to get a lot of answers (there was actually a major revelation in the first few pages in regards to a major character from the first book and I loved it.) While I expect that the scrubbing away of the mysteries won't be 100% satisfying, may take away some of the fun of the first story, I'm still eager to read.

I'm also very excited at seeing people tag this series with "LGBT characters!" I was kind of tired that the heroine in the first book had things go back to her husband so often, though at the very least I'm happy that this time the story was a woman with a dead (?) husband, and not a man with a dead wife., so knowing there will hopefully be less straightness (maybe less cis-ness? Too much to hope for?) is nice.