State of Wonder- Ann Patchett

State of Wonder is, by its description, the kind of book I thought I would get involved in. Essentially, a pharmacologist is sent to the jungle to investigate both the recent death of a colleague and the progress of a study being done on fertility for her company. It seemed incredibly intriguing: ethical predicaments, pharmacology, research in the wild, what’s not to like?

However, I was slightly disappointed. Three quarters of the novel was slow, plodding, and not entirely relevant to the parts of the book I was most interested in. The main character, Marina, was weak and marginally pathetic. I could tell that Patchett wanted me to love and identify with her being put into such a mess, but all I could think of was how sad she seemed, and how easily she could get out of it, if only she wanted to. Most of the first half of the book was getting Marina to the jungle and Dr. Swenson, her former teacher and the conductor of the fertility study, and it was boring. After they arrived at the site, things picked up slightly, but I was still largely unimpressed.

But then I realized something with about 100 pages to go- the book had me. I cared and was thinking about the ethical dilemmas it wanted me to think about. I cared about the characters. Hateful Dr. Swenson, boring and tedious Marina, horrifying Dr. Fox (Marina’s boss). The only perfect character in the book is Easter, a native child from the jungle, who I (like Marina) liked from the beginning. I was pretty surprised to realize that I was disappointed to stop reading. I wanted to finish it, to see how things were resolved.

That remains the book’s saving grace. I think it was worth it to slog through the first 250 pages to get to the last 100. Solid 3. I’m not going to read it again, the majority of it was too boring to warrant that, but the ending made me glad that I spent the time and picked it up.

I can’t decide if I’d actually recommend the book to anyone though. I am glad I finished it, and didn’t give up halfway through like I considered doing, but I have mixed feelings on both the way we were brought into the final conflict and the conflict itself. To explain further would be to give too much away.