{"id":4240,"date":"2025-04-02T15:00:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T21:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=4240"},"modified":"2025-01-21T21:21:21","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T04:21:21","slug":"book-annihilation-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/02\/book-annihilation-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Annihilation (2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Annihilation\"Annihilation
<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2014
Author: Jeff VanderMeer
Length: 195 pages<\/p>\n

Having already watched the 2018 movie adaptation of Annihilation<\/em><\/a>, I knew going into this book that it would be quite the trip. My expectations were mostly set on what was going to happen in this book, but not on how the author would convey these events. I was pleasantly surprised with something that felt just as disorienting. Told in the first-person perspective, Annihilation<\/em> messes with the concept of an unreliable narrator in a way that I haven\u2019t ever seen before. The real question is whether I understand anything now that I\u2019ve seen the movie and read the book.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a melancholy present in Annihilation<\/em> that almost borders on nihilism. The way the main character seems to float through this world, carrying her trauma and relational scars around in an eerily monotonous and emotionless manner, is both unsettling and oddly comforting. Was this her attempt at obtaining closure? Did she want to find somewhere she truly belonged? Whatever the reason, she is propelled forward by forces outside her control, and she doesn\u2019t resist any of the alien influence.<\/p>\n

The prose in Annihilation<\/em> is truly the star of the show here. Other writers might try to take a more scientific approach when dealing with aliens, but VanderMeer leans into the disorienting nature of Area X. I\u2019ve been drunk a few times, but never high enough to hallucinate like this. Several times I had to stop and re-read a page to understand what was happening. Once I turned my mind off and let the words flow through me, I had a much more enjoyable time in this book. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll get through the rest of the trilogy, but this one was worth the read.<\/p>\n

A trippy hallucination of a novel, I give Annihilation<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AnnihilationYear: 2014Author: Jeff VanderMeerLength: 195 pages Having already watched the 2018 movie adaptation of Annihilation, I knew going into this book that it would be quite the trip. My expectations were mostly set on what was going to happen in this book, but not on how the author would convey these events. I was pleasantly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[26,3618,55,4082,4084,4083,8,4085,2525,4086],"class_list":["post-4240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-book","tag-26","tag-annihilation","tag-book","tag-halucination","tag-jeff-vandermeer","tag-melancholy","tag-review","tag-southern-reach","tag-trippy","tag-unreliable-narrator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4240"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4243,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4240\/revisions\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}