The Nightmarchers

I???ll admit that the book absolutely sucked me in; that prologue was a REALLY good hook, or at least for me it was. The first-person perspective helps to obscure a lot of what???s going on, forcing the reader to try and piece things together before diving into the the novel???s main plot. As a way to keep the reader intrigued, it was very effectively done. After that it takes a while for the momentum to pick up again, because of the need to set the stage, but once Julia is on the island, things start moving pretty damn fast, in a rollercoaster kind of way that is difficult to predict - mostly by throwing in concepts that come totally out of left field. 
Which is where things become a bit troublesome with this novel. Now, I generally don???t have problems with authors throwing ideas together and stacking them one on top of the other to create a layer cake of concepts, but there???s something a little disjointed about the way the concepts in this novel came together. It???s a little hard to explain without going into spoilers, but: the first layer was already pretty interesting, if a bit of a stretch, but I was willing to suspend my disbelief because I REALLY liked the idea, especially given how it worked with the setup at the start of the novel. But then towards the end of the novel another layer was added that felt like it didn???t have enough decent setup to really work. Like it was tossed in there because the author wanted to up the ante beyond the (already pretty high) current stakes that had initially been laid down. 
Unfortunately, the addition of that extra, disjointed layer didn???t work any wonders for the ending. I don???t expect stories to always have a neat, tidy ending, but even when there???s questions left unanswered those questions need to at least work in context with everything else in the novel. Sadly, that isn???t the case in this book, so the ending feels a bit oddly-shaped, as if there was something tacked onto it that doesn???t belong - which makes sense, given how some concepts were tacked on near the end that didn???t seem to go well with everything else. 
It isn???t all bad though, because what this novel does really well is to portray the setting as a character itself, and a VERY dangerous one at that. It???s easy to look at a rainforest and be caught up in dreams of paradise, but as many Indigenous people know, that beauty hides some very deadly things - and not all of them make their deadliness obvious. Some of the characters are also downright chilling, especially when the reader figures out the reasons behind their actions. And the themes are also pretty interesting: the privileged nature of people from wealthy colonialist countries that makes them think they can profit off the land, resources, and bodies of Indigenous people; the use of religion and science to soften the way for colonial interests; and the tension between logic and faith. 
Overall, this wasn???t half-bad as a read; it was certainly enjoyable while I was reading it. But certain new elements get included in the latter third of the novel that throw everything off, and those elements throw the ending off as well. Up until the reader gets to that point, though, it???s a thoroughly enjoyable, and pretty terrifying, read.