State of Wonder is a beautiful book; this was my third time reading it, and I count it among my favourites.

Dr. Marina Singh is a lab researcher for a large pharmaceutical company. Her close co-worker, Anders, has been sent to the Amazon jungle to get a progress report from an intractable researcher there. While in Brazil, Anders dies of some sort of fever. Marina's boss sends her to Brazil to find out as much as she can about his death. She goes very reluctantly. She lands In Manaus and is forced to wait there for some weeks until Dr. Swenson, the chief of research, comes out of the Amazon to buy supplies, and Marina persuades Swenson to take her to a tribal encampment where Swenson has been working for many years.

The story charts Marina's stay in Manaus, her time in the Amazon jungle, the new relationships she forms, and especially the change in her thinking. It is a true adventure story, filled with happenings that border on magical realism. There are also anacondas and, cannibals and scientific horrors. It's a beautiful book, Patchett's best, and I highly recommend it. ( )

Kindle book.KIRKUS REVIEWA pharmacologist travels into the Amazonian heart of darkness in this spellbinder from bestselling author Patchett (Run, 2007, etc.).Marina Singh is dispatched from the Vogel pharmaceutical company to Brazil to find out what happened to her colleague Anders Eckman, whose death was announced in a curt letter from Annick Swenson. Anders had been sent to check on Dr. Swenson?s top-secret research project among the Lakashi tribe, whose women continue to bear children into their 60s and 70s. If a fertility drug can be derived from whatever these women are ingesting, the potential rewards are so enormous that Swenson has been pursuing her work for years with scant oversight from Vogel; the company doesn?t even know exactly where she is in the Amazon. Marina, who went into pharmacology after making a disastrous mistake as an obstetrics resident under Dr. Swenson?s supervision, really doesn?t want to see this intimidating woman again, but she feels an obligation to her friend Anders and his grief-stricken wife. So she goes to Manaus, seeking clues to Dr. Swenson?s location in the jungle. By the time the doctor turns up unexpectedly, Patchett has skillfully crafted a portrait from Marina?s memories and subordinates? comments that gives Swenson the dark eminence of Joseph Conrad?s Mr. Kurtz. Engaged like Kurtz in godlike pursuits among the natives, Swenson is performing some highly unorthodox experiments, the ramifications of which have even more possibilities than Vogel imagines. Indeed, the multiple and highly dramatic developments that ensue once Marina gets to the Lakashi village might seem ridiculous, if Patchett had not created such credible characters and a dreamlike milieu in which anything seems possible. Nail-biting action scenes include a young boy?s near-mortal crushing by a 15-foot anaconda, whose head Marina lops off with a machete; they?re balanced by contemplative moments that give this gripping novel spiritual and metaphysical depth, right down to the final startling plot twist.Thrilling, disturbing and moving in equal measures�even better than Patchett?s breakthrough Bel Canto (2001).

The reviews on goodreads are mixed re this book and I understand some of the criticism. On the down side for me, the story dragged a little while the characters were stuck in the small town before heading into the jungle. But everything prior to and after that was a page turner. I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. ( )

Didn't love this one as much as Bel Canto but still a very good book. ( )

I enjoyed it but it didn't stay with me like some of her other books. ( )