I found this book to be a little frustrating initially. A little slow, too many flashbacks and too little "weird stuff" actually happening in Area X. However, I think that is down to my knowledge of the story from various YouTube videos which discussed the film adaptation.

By the time I was at the latter half of the book, I was starting to see the point; how VanderMeer was tying in the biologists past experiences and outlooks to her current predicament inside Area X. The biologist as the protagonist is an interesting, generally unlikable character. She shows little interest in other people, including her husband, and seems to be experiencing her relationships at a distance, with an uncommon level of analysis. Like a biologist observing animals in the wild. 

Her innate inquisitiveness, or obsession, with ecosystems is what makes her an exceptional POV character for the book. Because of her weird quirks and obsessiveness, you believe every choice she makes in the book. This is compelling because we don't know how much of the choices she made were really due to her, or

due to her exposure to to the phosphorus plant writing.

This juxtaposition of whether choices are made by people or, in effect, Area X, is a running theme throughout the novel, which causes conflict between characters, and adds to a nagging sense of unreliable narrator that the reader will feel.

I believe the biologist to be reliable. Or at least, honest about what she experienced and how everything went down. I have no reason to believe Area X to not be a weird place full of bizarre things, and as such her account rings true for me. Another reader might say that she was clearly

infected

by something at the beginning and, while we see things from her POV which may be mostly "truthful", she is entirely willed by Area X to do the things she does, and perhaps causes harm to others without even knowing it.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I don't think it's particularly scary - creepy, sure - but not scary. It's a little lovecraftian or alien, potentially. Again, this is down to interpretation and is perhaps clarified in the rest of the series, though I suspect the truth of the nature of Area X will remain hidden.

I think I will continue the series and would recommend it to anyone who wants to read something that is both odd, reflective of interpersonal relationships, and has some weird shit in it.