I requested this one because it might be a 2021 title I would like to review on my Youtube Channel. However, after reading the first several chapters I have determined that this book is not my tastes. So I decided to DNF this one rather than push myself to finish it only to give it a poor review. I found the main character very unlikeable and felt it was stereotyping overweight people.

Did not enjoy this book; it actually felt like a chore to finish it and was only able to because I was listening to an audiobook. The "mystery" was so loose and scattered and drawn out that it didn't keep my interest. And the end-of-the-world details were so cryptic and seemingly inconsequential that it felt like a false layer to the story. I finished it because if I'm going to give a bad review, I want to give it a fair shot to redeem itself; for me, it didn't. However, because I don't think the writing is necessarily poor, I gave it at least 2 stars.

I love Jeff Vandermeer’s novels. Why? Because the worlds he creates are at once both foreign and recognizable. You instantly are plunged into a murky web, unsure exactly what has transpired. Here, in Hummingbird Salamander the reader is issued into a world just a bit beyond our present day. Vandermeer addresses his usual themes of climate change, pollution, animal extinction, pandemics, and gradual decline of the environment. The protagonist of Hummingbird Salamander is Jane Smith, a security consultant, six feet tall, 230 lbs, a former wrestler/ weightlifter, who receives a mysterious missive from Silvinia, a woman known as an Argentinian eco- terrorist. You aren’t really sure what’s going on, but you are right in the thick of it while it happens, inhaling the smoke along with Jane, as the world burns. This is a wild ride of a mystery, sure to thrill Vandermeer’s many fans.