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The prose in this book is lovely.

The best way I can summarise its themes is that it's a story about the Earth. Our connection to it; its history; the things we understand and the things we don't; the things we lose when we move beyond it. All of these things filtered through the perspective of Leigh, a detached yet ambitious scientist.

The supporting characters don't get a lot of development. It's not that type of book. It's slow, it's often meandering. It takes its time. The focus is very much on, as I said, the world: its beauty and its horror

You might expect an ensemble cast, based on the summary, but it's really not - the main character is very disinterested in her expedition-mates. Not a single character, even herself, gets a name. The protagonist herself is well fleshed out, but don't expect too much development from the others.

You might also expect a mystery, where you slowly piece together what happened to Area X and the previous expeditions - you do get a little bit of that, but not really. By the end most questions remain unanswered.

The appeal here is mostly the setting and atmosphere. It's an unsettling story that touches on various sources of horror: the transformation into something inhuman; the feeling of facing something beyond comprehension, of knowing nothing about the dangers you're facing, of the inevitability of defeat. I enjoyed it.

Note that, despite having a teenage protagonist, this is not a YA novel. It's a dark, ambiguous, subtly-written story about isolation, faith, memory, and the difference between what you do and what you think.

There's no way I can describe this book that does it justice. It packs a lot into under 500 pages, so it has to be read slowly.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it at the end, but I ended up writing over 1000 words in my notes app trying to analyse it, so I guess that means I loved it.