Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy

So so SO strange! I buddy read this with a friend and had we not stopped to discuss after every chapter, I'm not sure what I would've gotten out of this book... There is so much going on, and so much that is and is not said that it would be super easy to plow through this book and give it a bad rating for being nonsensical, but there is genuinely just A LOT to sift through.
I loved the gradual changes to the narrator, I loved the crazy almost incomprehensible world and creatures. and the QUESTIONS. I have so many–current, because not much is answered...but I still really enjoyed it and am eager to continue on with the trilogy!

As I finished the last page of Annihilation, I was left with a sense of existential dread, nausea, confusion (but not in a bad way) and some intense curiosity. I have so many questions. Can't wait to read the other 2 books in the trilogy.

The first book I read in a couple days and it was very good. I found the mystery, horror, and Sci-Fi elements interesting. I was enjoying the Biologists perspective and all indicators were pointed towards a series that would make my favourite's list. Then the second book came and it was so incredibly slow, meandering and filled with so much bureaucracy that it completely killed my interest in the series.  It also doesn't help that I didn't like Controls character much at all and he dominates the second book.

The third book had a few more interesting perspectives such as Saul, which make it better than the second book imo, but similar criticisms in that it's slow and nothing much really happens. Area X itself is very interesting, but the books for me end up drowning in the minutiae.

I really enjoyed this book. My husband and I finished it in a single afternoon and already grabbed the second one. I'm a bit disappointed in the ending (hence the four stars) because there was no real conclusion. I know this is a trilogy but every book should at least have some sort of wrap up of a story and I feel like this one left nothing answered. That being said, it was great writing and the mystery of it will keep me reading into the next book.