Skylar Embrey

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Honestly one of the best books I've read in a while. I'm a huge fan of science fiction and this book brought a interesting telling of science fiction. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time, excited to see what would happen next. I loved the writing and the detail how everything was described. VanderMeer is very talented with his storytelling. I loved how everything came together at the end, it was a little confusing a first but it just kept making more and more sense. I especially liked the element of not naming the characters. At first it might come off a lazy for not wanting to name your own book characters but the way this book went about it just felt right. They didn't need names, they have their jobs and that's all that mattered to them while in Area X. It also helped for me to remember what purpose each character served in the book. It was full of suspense and had a very nice horror element that left me surprised at how well it was written. Some people found the ending very lackluster but I thought it made sense to end the way it did. Area X and everything in it is largely unknown so it makes sense to me that the main character doesn't really figure out what is going on, she just has her theories. If she had of figured it out, it would have been like any other book, which made this one stand out. 10/10 would read again. Cant wait to read the rest if the trilogy. However the movie adaptation was trash and don't recommend watching.

Annihilation

2 likes

I had high expectations for this movie as I had read the book beforehand. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and was excited to see it come to life. However the movie was terribly executed. It completely strayed away from the plot and honestly didn't even make much sense. Nothing was explained and major plot points were missing. I honestly don't think this should be considered a movie adaptation when some of the most important elements were missing. The characters didn't match up, there was no tower, and the lighthouse was entirely different. The fact that the character elements didn't match up made it so that the plot changed itself. There was too many characters going on the expedition when in the book it said there was 5 but the 5th woman dropped out, and it affects then later as the main character mentions needing that 5th women's skill set. And in the book they characters were named by their professions and it says they were stripped of their identities so they could focus solely on their work, their personal lives did not matter. The other major thing was the absence of the tower, the opening line if the book "The tower, which was not supposed to be there...". It was so important in the book, the main character referring to it as a tower when everyone else called it tunnel, the writing on the walls that contained the spores that infected the main character and made her part of area x itself, the existence of the crawler that lived in the tower. Even from an outside perspective, if I hadn't of read the book first, I would still think this movie was terrible. It was 2 hours long and almost nothing happened. So much useless information was given at the beginning and was never used again. Anya talked about being a paramedic but she never even did anything with her skills. Ventress was a psychologist but she hardly even did anything all once they got to area x. Giving credit where it is due, the visuals of the movie were quite good. It was pleasing to look at, it did a good job of capturing the essence of a civilization taken back over by nature. The people shaped plants were probably my favorite part just because they looked cool. Overall a terrible excuse for a movie adaptation and a terrible movie itself.

Annihilation

2 likes