For someone who HATES spiders, the fact my eyes went straight to this book on Netgalley is confusing to me. But from the moment I read the title and saw the beautiful and intriguing cover I knew I had to give it a go, and I’m very happy I did.
Cult of the Spider Queen follows a newspaper reporter as he discovers a tape from a director who has been missing in the Amazon Rainforest after she went looking for the Spider Queen, a goddess. The reporter, Andy, then gathers a small team and heads on an ambitious search party for the missing director. However, this isn’t a simple search and rescue as the team experiences many out-of-world moments in the hunt for the director and the Spider Queen.
This type of book isn’t my normal go to, I tend to stick to murder mystery types but I’ve been challenging myself to step out my comfort zone and this book done exactly that. Sidor has done an amazing job at setting the scene throughout this book. I generally felt immersed in the surroundings and was able to perfectly picture the rainforest and what the characters were going through. It even got to the point where I felt so itchy and fidgety as if I had spiders crawling all over me, insane. Sidor also managed to make me feel connected to the characters, I started to really care for the main characters and even started to worry for them when things were going wrong. This along with the way each characters personalities were shown throughout the book just helped with the overall immersion of the book.
I read this book in e-book format on my iPad, so I can’t speak for the physical copy, but this book is larger than most I have read. When I first opened the book on my iPad it showed 787 pages, which for a slow reader is scary. However the chapters were short, and anyone who has read my previous blog posts will know I LOVE short chapters. For me, short chapters makes it a lot easier to read more in one sitting. Its like when you’re binging a show on Netflix, another 20 min episode is nothing so you stick it on and before you know it it’s six episodes later. Well that’s the same with short chapters, you think ‘aw ok just one more as its small’ and before you know if you’ve read 10!
As much as I loved this book, there were a few things that just didn’t make sense to me. A character named Ashely Lott is introduced early on when the main team make it so the Amazon, but then he is forgotten about until right near the end. And even when he is brought back I just don’t see why. Personally I think Ashley Lott should have been more involved throughout the story, or just completely left out. He just seems a tad unnecessary to the overall story, and I wouldn’t miss him. Also, I feel like the ending didn’t offer up much of a conclusion. A lot happens in the final chapters, in a tad rushed form, and the ending just seems very abrupt in a way. I would have liked a but more of a story about what happened once they returned home, but instead I was just left a bit unsatisfied.
Overall, Cult of the Spider Queen was a very captivating and different read for me. The mystery of it all mixed with the slightly surreal nature of the book was fascinating. I am so glad I stepped out of my comfort zone for this book, and I urge people to go and read it once its published - 7 December 2021.
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