State of Wonder

I have read several mediocre books lately. Several of them were on bestseller lists, or started off good, but turned out to be nothing to write home (or on the blog) about. I was excited when I saw that Ann Patchett had released a new book. She is the author of Bel Canto, on of my Top Ten favorite books. I purchased the book with high hopes and they were completely fulfilled.

Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2011: In State of Wonder, pharmaceutical researcher Dr. Marina Singh sets off into the Amazon jungle to find the remains and effects of a colleague who recently died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. But first she must locate Dr. Anneck Swenson, a renowned gynecologist who has spent years looking at the reproductive habits of a local tribe where women can conceive well into their middle ages and beyond. Eccentric and notoriously tough, Swenson is paid to find the key to this longstanding childbearing ability by the same company for which Dr. Singh works. Yet that isn’t their only connection: both have an overlapping professional past that Dr. Singh has long tried to forget. In finding her former mentor, Dr. Singh must face her own disappointments and regrets, along with the jungle’s unforgiving humidity and insects, making State of Wonder a multi-layered atmospheric novel that is hard to put down. Indeed, Patchett solidifies her well-deserved place as one of today’s master storytellers. Emotional, vivid, and a work of literature that will surely resonate with readers in the weeks and months to come, State of Wonder truly is a thing of beauty and mystery, much like the Amazon jungle itself. --Jessica Schein

It's a tough book to describe, but the short version is that I loved everything about it, the characters, the setting, the storyline, the intrigue, all of it I was pulled into the book from the very beginning. The descriptions are amazing and there are some pretty surprising twists and turns. I don't want to give anything away, but let me know if you read it, I would love to discuss.

Definitely A