Rainforest by Michelle Paver

Started: 31.3.26

Finished: 1.4.26

Hardcover

TBR Prompt: Animal on the cover

This book is the story of an entomologist called Simon who is travelling to the rainforest, ostensibly to study mantids. Told from his POV, it's safe to say that he's an 'unreliable narrator'. We learn that he's grieving for someone called Penelope, with whom he believed he was in love, however as he divulges more into his journal, it becomes apparent that his feelings weren't reciprocated, and also that this trip may not have been entirely his choice. Once in the jungle, amongst the natives and their spiritual beliefs, Simon finds that the line between the living and the dead is a tenuous one.

Set in the 1970s, with some 1970s attitudes towards women and indigenous people, I never warmed to the character of Simon, or any of his colleagues really, though I don't think we were meant to. To me, he seemed spoiled and petulant; there were suggestions of a difficult childhood but these were never really explored in any great depth. He just seems to have grown into an angry, self-obsessed man with poor social skills. By the end of his jungle ordeal he has perhaps had something of an awakening, but I didn't feel that he'd fully redeemed himself in any way.

I enjoyed this book but it doesn't come close to my favourite, Dark Matter, by the same author.