Jade’s Reviews > Annihilation > Status Update

the late-book shenanigans are so nuts it feels like the scariest yet most peaceful dream i’ve ever had. it is SO unique i fucking adore it.

MAJOR SPOILERS IN THIS UPDATE

wow i totally forgot the word Annihilation has a totally different extra purpose in the book than the movie. the psychologist using it as a hypnosis suggestion to immediately commit suicide, and trying to use it on the biologist when she finds her on the ground outside of the lighthouse???? genuinely terrifying.

this book is just. so masterful. the way the biologist’s loss of sanity happens so subtly and so slowly is so unnerving, like specifically the moment she says “If there had been an endless number of pages, I feared that I would have stood there reading for an eternity? until I fell to the floor and died of thirst or starvation” gave me chills. she is losing control of herself so completely, but slowly. so good.

GOD I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. it’s wild how this book is able to function in such a way where it feels like both a confessional and a science journal at the same time, and i love the non-linear structure of it.

genuinely forgot just how disorienting and insane this book is lmao the movie is similar in that way but with a much more linear and clearly defined narrative, and changes a lot from the book. i don’t even know how they would adapt this into film in a faithful way if i’m being honest.

reading this again because i need an old favorite to get myself back into the swing of reading.

so its finally come to the point where im once again in the mood for speculative sci-fi horror, and the road im going down is a reread of the Southern Reach books. ive read the first two and never finished the third, and the fourth book was soft announced too, so i think its finally time.