This was truly quite scary.
If there’s one thing Michelle Paver knows how to do, it’s create an atmosphere that absorbs you. In fact, it draws you in so thoroughly then spits you out the other side wondering if that really just happened. I sat in bed in a dark (cosy!) room reading this and felt terrified of creatures, big and small, that could have been creeping up on me – the atmosphere was just that good.
Rainforest by Michelle Paver is now available to buy!
Doctor Simon Corbett is a peculiar character. He is travelling alone to the rainforest to join a team on an archaeological dig, however he is there for the sole purpose of finding mantids. His interactions with others are immediately off somehow, and as he talks about his failed relationship, his social awkwardness, which even he is aware of, becomes more obvious. While seeking out his beloved mantis on an excursion, he becomes lost alone in the rainforest, and is that really the ghost of his former romance or just a product of his imagination?
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This is very close to 5 stars for me, but just missed the mark as the backstory of his “romantic” relationship fell just a little flat. To me, this wasn’t the main point of the story, but provided information into the background of the character which was, honestly, distinctly unlikeable. Even from the beginning, this failed relationship feels like it has something extra brewing under the surface. This is slowly revealed and you realise your instincts were right, but it feels like there should be a little more to it than we ever hear through his unreliable narration – I’d be intrigued to know the other side of the story! For a little more context that doesn’t give the whole thing away, while writing his story to his journal, it becomes more apparent that the love of his life is (far) more obsession than love.
The paranormal aspects of this book are very well done, as with Paver’s other nature based novels – Thin Air and Dark Matter (two of my favourite books ever – she is an auto-buy author for me!). I love the isolation of exploring new worlds, the primal fear of it. I think it’s probably partly due to the fact that you’re unlikely to experience this kind of fear day to day in the modern world – being so exposed in a harsh wilderness with nothing but your own means to rely on. This is where the supernatural elements come into play, and you never quite know if the characters have just hallucinated it or if it’s really there.
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This book was no different to the others I’ve loved (as I said, that atmosphere!) in that regard, and the rainforest was an area I haven’t read much about for years, but I remember a couple of books set there that I loved when I was younger (The Sound of Butterflies and Journey to the River Sea). It’s a thrilling, rich, diverse landscape that’s so frightening to those of us that don’t understand it.
This was a quick read and one that I really enjoyed. I’d highly recommend it if you love those type of isolated landscapes, a bit of psychological horror and an unreliable narrator.
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Thank you to Netgalley, the author and the publishers for a review copy of this book.
