“He was wary of that feeling; it was a space where shadows crept in that shouldn’t creep in, where people agreed to things that they did not actually agree with, believing they were of one purpose and intent.”
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I was almost anticipating a letdown after the excellence of Annihilation but this was an equally impressive book. What felt remarkable to me was realizing that the book spanned about 2 weeks. It never felt slow to me. Rather than the eeriness of book one, this book had a consistent undercurrent of doubt and paranoia.

Once again, Vandermeer used incredibly rich imagery/metaphors/similes for emotion. I liked the constant cognitive dissonance between what a character said and their body language. Whitby saying “I like it here” while sweating, fidgeting, and clearly uncomfortable conveyed the same doubt and distrust of others and experience that Control was constantly dealing with. 

The rotting smell was a really cool allegory and literal experience for the invasion into Control’s mind and stability unraveling. In fact, his paranoia and instability increased in direct parallel to the information he gained about Area X and everything related to it. I hadn’t suspected a key element of what was happening to him, but it makes so much sense. I really enjoyed how much this felt like the more information gained and assumptions made, the further we got from the truth of any of it. 

I liked that the reader was constantly questioning whether the biologist was herself or a replica until the very end of the book. Once again, an excellent introspective novel that kept me on my toes the whole way through.