It’s possible I’m the only one who didn’t know this is the first book of a trilogy. I don’t know if I’ll read the other two. There’s a mysterious place, Area X, where some kind of cataclysmic change happened, and it’s now abandoned and “walled” off, by an invisible barrier. Physically this place is unbelievably lush. VanderMeer somehow made me feel threatened by the growth of things. Psychologically the place has something else going on. A number of expeditions have tried to investigate or map […]
That’s nothing like the book! And deeper lessons learned on re-reading decades later
When I found out Disney was adapting A Wrinkle in Time, I knew that I would read it to my daughter before the movie came out. We recently watched the trailer but hadn’t finished the book yet. Once the trailer finished, my daughter turned to me and said, “That’s nothing like the book!” I started laughing and responded, “Get used to that feeling, kiddo”. Later we talked about the challenge of adapting a written work to a visual medium and we both speculated on how Aunt Beast will […]
Tobias has an existential crisis.
So there’s a scene in this book that has stuck with me for years, ever since I first read it as a kid. Tobias is in human morph, sitting in a trap he very much knows is there, with an enemy watching, waiting for him to slip up, and he gets some unbelievably unexpected news. The only thing that saves him is that he’s so unused to being a human anymore, he doesn’t really make facial expressions. His face is perfectly blank when his world […]
Okay, but don’t read this book, it’s not safe.
Just as a heads up, I will be calling the police at the end of this review to report a crime, because this book and its author tried to murder me. Does anyone know the legislation about this? Can I have a book arrested for assault? Okay, but seriously, this book is a monster. There were several points where I nearly threw it across the room, I was so upset. And then I kept going and almost immediately it became clear why Palmer did that […]