Puzzles Presents: Ultimate Reading Challenge 2015 discussion

Post the title, description, and your opinion of the book you read.

Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy.

After a mysterious event, a coastal area is cut off from the rest of the world. After decades of expeditions into Area X have resulted in little understanding of the changes and many deaths, one final expedition may be the key to understanding, or the trigger that results in Area X spreading and dooming humanity.

The first book of the trilogy read like a Twilight Zone episode, and was really eerie. The third book managed to change the understanding of the first two completely, which I really enjoyed. However, overall, the books left too much unexplained, the narrative was paced erratically and confusingly, and the story just made too many promises it couldn't follow through on (it felt a little like LOST in that way).

I thought the difficultly in understanding the story was just me, but it looks like others on goodreads have come to the same conclusion: the book is incredibly ambitious, but fails a bit in execution.

While I still have two more to go in the series (and book 2 is sending as I type this), this series is brilliant. It starts with White Cat continues with Red Glove and ends with Black Heart.

I love this author and I love her original takes on these stories.

What made this read even better for me was that it was read by Jesse Eisenberg. He's a sharp wit with a dry humor and it was a perfect fit for this world. As an actor, he can do inflections and accents and won me over instantly.

I completely forgot about this challenge and it's a bit too late to read a trilogy now so I am going to cheat a little. This year I read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck, and The Marvels by Brian Selznick. While not a trilogy, they are written in the same style, alternating between text and drawings, and have similar themes. For me, this alternating style took a little getting used to but after awhile I usually yearned for more drawings than text. The books are excellent and I was happy to get a signed copy of the Marvels earlier this year.