Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1) in 2017 Reading Challenge

Jan 21, 2018 Susan Chacko rated it it was amazing

Shelves: science-fiction

The trailer for this book's movie adaptation was intriguing enough to make me want to read this book. Also, I like to be one of those people who go "I read the book" whenever someone brings up the movie adaptation. :D

About the book, it was pretty creepy. It's about an expedition of scientists that go to explore Area X, an area that has been cut off from the rest of the world for reasons unknown. None of the previous expeditions yielded any answers and not everyone came back from those missions; The trailer for this book's movie adaptation was intriguing enough to make me want to read this book. Also, I like to be one of those people who go "I read the book" whenever someone brings up the movie adaptation. :D

About the book, it was pretty creepy. It's about an expedition of scientists that go to explore Area X, an area that has been cut off from the rest of the world for reasons unknown. None of the previous expeditions yielded any answers and not everyone came back from those missions; some didn't come back at all. The expedition we read about is the twelfth one comprising of four female scientists- a psychologist, a biologist, a surveyor and an anthropologist. We read from the biologist's point of view. They enter Area X and after exploring come upon a tunnel, or tower as the biologist calls it, which they begin investigating.

(view spoiler)[ During the exploration of the tower, the biologist becomes infected by some kind of fungus in the tower. After a day of exploring the tunnel, they return to base camp and record their observations. The next day, they discover that the anthropologist is missing and they aren't convinced by the psychologist's explanation that she returned to the extraction point that would take her out of Area X. When they return to the tower, the psychologist opts to stand watch and sends the surveyor and the biologist down to explore and collect samples where they discover the anthropologist's body and realise that the psychologist put her under hypnosis and made her collect samples. When the tower, as the biologist realized as a result of her infection, which is a living being she names Crawler felt threatened by it, it protected itself by killing the anthropologist. All of this and the biologist's confession that she was immune to the hypnotic suggestions makes the surveyor very distrustful of everyone. When they return to base camp, they find out that the psychologist left taking most of their supplies and weapons. The surveyor becomes very paranoid wants to leave Area X. But the biologist, looking for answers to what happened to her husband who was a medic on the previous expedition, wants to stay and keep investigating. She decides to go to a lighthouse prominently featured in many of the maps but the surveyor decides to stay back at base camp.

The biologist walks to the lighthouse all the while aware of changes in her body caused by the infection. When she reaches her destination and looks around inside, she makes a startling discovery. She finds a crawlspace filled with stacks of journals, all from previous expeditions and she surmises from the number that there had to be more than 11 expeditions and that they were lied to by the Southern Reach, a secret government organization investigating Area X. She also finds the psychologist who was dying from a fall off the lighthouse. The biologist heads back to the base camp but she gets shot at by the surveyor who thinks the biologist killed the psychologist but thanks to her increased reflexes from the infection, she is able to fatally shoot the surveyor. She then heads back into the tower and comes face to face with the Crawler in a near-fatal encounter. When she exits the tower, she decides to stay and keep exploring Area X and heads to an island that her husband went to when he was there hoping to find out what happened to him. (hide spoiler)]

I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. It was so creepy and I needed answers just like the biologist. I really liked the biologist's character. She seemed so focused on her field of study and that was her singular passion. The novel was well-written in that aspect; the character development was on point. The plot was also amazing; it was written just right. It was so full of suspense. I could hear my heart beating towards the end of the novel. I couldn't put it down, I needed to get to the next page and the next to find out what was going on.

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend that you check it out. Amazing read. :D ...more

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