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Acceptance: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy Book 3)

Acceptance: A Novel (The Southern Reach Trilogy Book 3)

byJeff VanderMeer
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Top positive review

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iank
5.0 out of 5 starsUnforgettable Surreal Fiction
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 17, 2014
Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, of which Acceptance is the last book, is unusual in my experience. I don't usually like surreal or "fantastic" fiction. I don't usually like the ambiguous and dream like quality of this style of fiction. Although I had tried VanderMeer's earlier book Finch, I didn't finish it. The Southern Reach Trilogy was different however.

VanderMeer is a master of describing the atmosphere of place. In both Annihilation (the first book of the trilogy) and Acceptance VanderMeer writes about a version of Northern Florida's "Forgotten Coast" that has become Area X. His description of the pristine wilderness of Area X, combined with the lurking menace is compelling and unforgettable. I found VanderMeer's description of the Forgotten Coast so strong and compelling that I looked it up on the web and would like to visit someday.

In the second book of the trilogy, Authority, the setting is the Southern Reach, an organization that was created to research Area X. Instead of the description of wilderness, there is a description of a claustrophobic institution and bureaucracy, with, again, Area X the lurking menace in the background. I found the warping of the Southern Reach and of the people who work there uncomfortable reading. Authority was the bridge novel between the start and end of the trilogy and I didn't like it as much as Annihilation and Acceptance.

The characters in Acceptance are Control (the Southern Reach Director John Rodriguez from Authority), Ghost Bird, an avatar of the Biologist from Authority, the Psychologist, and Southern Reach Director, who lead the expedition in Annihilation and Grace, the Southern Reach second in command under Control and the Psychologist.

A minor digression: Normally I have an almost allergic reaction to writing in the second person ("You find yourself in a large automobile. And you ask yourself...") VanderMeer is the first writer that I've read where I felt that the second person perspective worked well. In Acceptance VanderMeer uses the second person in the sections on the Psychologist. The narrative was easier to follow since the second person signaled a switch to the Psychologist's world.

The setting in Acceptance moves between the Psychologist when she was director at the Southern Reach and Area X. Acceptance provides background on Area X before it was walled off by "The Border". We learn about the lighthouse keeper and others who lived in Area X. We also see the growth of Area X and the arrival of The Border. But there are no clear answers as to what precisely Area X is and the mechanism of its formation. There are suggestions and sketches of what it might be and who created it. But Area X is never completely fathomed.

Humans create stories to explain what they can't understand. Modern science has allowed much of our common world to be explained by a rational structure. What we know and can understand is still limited. The universe remains a strange and unexplained place. In the Southern Reach trilogy Area X is beyond human understanding and exists via forces that humans can only glimpse.

What stands out in these books are the characters and the spaces they inhabit: the Southern Reach, Area X and Central (the parent organization of the Southern Reach). We see some of the inner lives of the characters, how their environment warps them and how they evolve and change. The plot of the Southern Reach trilogy is ambiguous, but what is unforgettable is the characters and the pristine menace of Area X's Forgotten Coast.
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Sneaky Burrito
3.0 out of 5 starssome loose ends were tied up, but there are lots of unanswered questions
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2017
I rushed through Annihilation, the first book in this series. Absolutely loved it. I quickly moved on to Authority, book two, and mostly like that, although there were some parts that dragged for me. I definitely liked it enough to immediately move on to book three, Acceptance. (Please note there may be spoilers for the first two books in what follows. But you definitely need to read those before you start with this one or you will be totally lost.)

Now, I saw some of what I liked from the first two books here, and I did finish it in three days (despite not having much time to read), so I just can't justify a one- or two-star rating. But neither did I like this as much as either of the first two books in the series.

Look, when you start reading a trilogy, you expect there to be some set-up in book one, some mysteries introduced in the first and even second books, but you want resolution by the end of book three, not new questions. Overall, I don't really feel like I got that. (I am, perhaps, most satisfied with the hints of what created the anomaly known as Area X, oddly enough. This is never spelled out for you, but there is an incident with the lighthouse keeper, Saul, and some speculation later on, and if you put those pieces together with some of the discussion of traveling to Area X, you can come up with something at least plausible. I think this part was done pretty well, actually, although you have to pay a lot of attention towards the end of the book and think about it for a bit afterwards, as well. Too much explanation would have made me roll my eyes because there's just no explaining something so alien.)

But, the first two books were character studies, first of the biologist from the twelfth expedition into Area X, and second of Control, the newly-installed director of Southern Reach, the agency that investigates and guards against Area X. And you kind of expect the book to continue in that vein, but the characters just aren't nearly as compelling in this book. Part of my issue here may stem from the multiple viewpoints -- Control, Ghost Bird (a double of the biologist created by Area X), the psychologist from book one who was also the director of Southern Reach before Control, and Saul Evans, keeper of the lighthouse that is discussed often in all three books. We also read a document written by the biologist from book one, who is sort of a fifth viewpoint character. (And if you wonder what happened to her at the end of book one, you will at least get an answer for that. It is weird, but it is resolution, and it doesn't come out of nowhere.)

This is really too many people to do the same type of character study we saw in book. But, I feel like the author is attempting to do so anyway. We get a lot of information on the backgrounds of the psychologist and of Saul. Both had experience in Area X before the change, and we read a lot about that time. Some of Saul's parts do help explain (or at least, I think they do) the formation of Area X. But there is a lot of extraneous stuff, as well. Like his relationship with a fisherman. I swear they go to bed together about 10 times in less than 25% of the book. (There is no graphic detail so don't worry about that.) I do like Saul's journal entries about the lighthouse. They don't seem relevant at first, but the changes in them accurately reflect his underlying mental state.

Anyway, I can buy Saul as a viewpoint character. I am not feeling the psychologist at all. I find her hard to sympathize with as she seems to have shunned personal relationships for most of her life, and the attempts to describe her personal life involve her hanging out at a bowling alley bar with people she doesn't know well (not even their names, apparently, or she doesn't care about their names). I think a lot of what she offered to the story could've been handled in Saul's sections, with Control finding a few of her documents to complete the picture.

And then, the other issues.

(1) Everyone is always trying to go to "the island." The biologist's husband. The biologist. Control and Ghost Bird. Even Grace (the Southern Reach assistant director from the past book). But why? What is so special about the island? It's not where resolution happens. I just don't get its prominent place in the story.

(2) Lowry. This guy survived the first expedition into Area X. He is the only person who did. I understand that this gives him some kind of personal knowledge and authority. But he has a couple of screws loose and I absolutely don't understand why he has so much influence over everyone else or how he is able to maintain a position in what I assume is some kind of intelligence agency. He does have some dirt on some other characters, but those are his subordinates, essentially, not his superiors (who would actually have a say in whether he keeps his job).

(3) The Seance and Science Brigade. These folks showed up in Saul's sections. It is implied that some of Control's family members may have had a connection. Mostly they just seemed annoying. Their role in everything is not explained. It seems they exist to annoy Saul, to trespass and vandalize, etc.

(4) Control. I don't understand at all what happened to him. Or why he was driven to do what he did, at the end.

(5) I guess I understand that missions were sent into Area X to understand what was going on. Because it was clearly harmful to people who had been there when it was created/formed/whatever. But it sounds like potentially hundreds of missions were sent, with hundreds of people lost. It seems like, at some point, you would cut your losses. Especially since, when people do come back (if they do at all), they rarely have any useful information. They leave all their journals in the lighthouse. No one has brought physical samples back for a long time. What is it that people are hoping to accomplish by going in here? It seems like Area X might've stayed stable but for human interference. Granted, I guess the characters couldn't know that.

(6) We keep being told that the biologist is the psychologist's secret weapon against Area X. I'm not convinced the reason for this was established. Yes, she's socially awkward and interested in nature and yes, her husband was on a previous expedition. But given the biologist's ultimate fate, I guess the psychologist was just wrong?

(7) We find out at some point in the previous book, or early in this one, that the psychologist went on an unauthorized mission into Area X and brought back a plant (the plant is definitely in book 2). Why was she able to do this when none of the official expeditions were all that successful (her companion was clearly damaged by the experience, but she didn't really change)?

Anyway, there were enough dropped threads and missed connections that I was not terribly satisfied with the conclusion of this trilogy. (I pretty much only read speculative fiction these days so it's not like I'm new to the genre, so my issue is not lack of familiarity with the types of stories that are told.) I like Mr. Vandermeer's writing style and would definitely consider buying other books of his. I'm just a little disappointed with this book. The series started out so strongly!
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Sneaky Burrito
3.0 out of 5 stars some loose ends were tied up, but there are lots of unanswered questions
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 27, 2017
Verified Purchase
I rushed through Annihilation, the first book in this series. Absolutely loved it. I quickly moved on to Authority, book two, and mostly like that, although there were some parts that dragged for me. I definitely liked it enough to immediately move on to book three, Acceptance. (Please note there may be spoilers for the first two books in what follows. But you definitely need to read those before you start with this one or you will be totally lost.)

Now, I saw some of what I liked from the first two books here, and I did finish it in three days (despite not having much time to read), so I just can't justify a one- or two-star rating. But neither did I like this as much as either of the first two books in the series.

Look, when you start reading a trilogy, you expect there to be some set-up in book one, some mysteries introduced in the first and even second books, but you want resolution by the end of book three, not new questions. Overall, I don't really feel like I got that. (I am, perhaps, most satisfied with the hints of what created the anomaly known as Area X, oddly enough. This is never spelled out for you, but there is an incident with the lighthouse keeper, Saul, and some speculation later on, and if you put those pieces together with some of the discussion of traveling to Area X, you can come up with something at least plausible. I think this part was done pretty well, actually, although you have to pay a lot of attention towards the end of the book and think about it for a bit afterwards, as well. Too much explanation would have made me roll my eyes because there's just no explaining something so alien.)

But, the first two books were character studies, first of the biologist from the twelfth expedition into Area X, and second of Control, the newly-installed director of Southern Reach, the agency that investigates and guards against Area X. And you kind of expect the book to continue in that vein, but the characters just aren't nearly as compelling in this book. Part of my issue here may stem from the multiple viewpoints -- Control, Ghost Bird (a double of the biologist created by Area X), the psychologist from book one who was also the director of Southern Reach before Control, and Saul Evans, keeper of the lighthouse that is discussed often in all three books. We also read a document written by the biologist from book one, who is sort of a fifth viewpoint character. (And if you wonder what happened to her at the end of book one, you will at least get an answer for that. It is weird, but it is resolution, and it doesn't come out of nowhere.)

This is really too many people to do the same type of character study we saw in book. But, I feel like the author is attempting to do so anyway. We get a lot of information on the backgrounds of the psychologist and of Saul. Both had experience in Area X before the change, and we read a lot about that time. Some of Saul's parts do help explain (or at least, I think they do) the formation of Area X. But there is a lot of extraneous stuff, as well. Like his relationship with a fisherman. I swear they go to bed together about 10 times in less than 25% of the book. (There is no graphic detail so don't worry about that.) I do like Saul's journal entries about the lighthouse. They don't seem relevant at first, but the changes in them accurately reflect his underlying mental state.

Anyway, I can buy Saul as a viewpoint character. I am not feeling the psychologist at all. I find her hard to sympathize with as she seems to have shunned personal relationships for most of her life, and the attempts to describe her personal life involve her hanging out at a bowling alley bar with people she doesn't know well (not even their names, apparently, or she doesn't care about their names). I think a lot of what she offered to the story could've been handled in Saul's sections, with Control finding a few of her documents to complete the picture.

And then, the other issues.

(1) Everyone is always trying to go to "the island." The biologist's husband. The biologist. Control and Ghost Bird. Even Grace (the Southern Reach assistant director from the past book). But why? What is so special about the island? It's not where resolution happens. I just don't get its prominent place in the story.

(2) Lowry. This guy survived the first expedition into Area X. He is the only person who did. I understand that this gives him some kind of personal knowledge and authority. But he has a couple of screws loose and I absolutely don't understand why he has so much influence over everyone else or how he is able to maintain a position in what I assume is some kind of intelligence agency. He does have some dirt on some other characters, but those are his subordinates, essentially, not his superiors (who would actually have a say in whether he keeps his job).

(3) The Seance and Science Brigade. These folks showed up in Saul's sections. It is implied that some of Control's family members may have had a connection. Mostly they just seemed annoying. Their role in everything is not explained. It seems they exist to annoy Saul, to trespass and vandalize, etc.

(4) Control. I don't understand at all what happened to him. Or why he was driven to do what he did, at the end.

(5) I guess I understand that missions were sent into Area X to understand what was going on. Because it was clearly harmful to people who had been there when it was created/formed/whatever. But it sounds like potentially hundreds of missions were sent, with hundreds of people lost. It seems like, at some point, you would cut your losses. Especially since, when people do come back (if they do at all), they rarely have any useful information. They leave all their journals in the lighthouse. No one has brought physical samples back for a long time. What is it that people are hoping to accomplish by going in here? It seems like Area X might've stayed stable but for human interference. Granted, I guess the characters couldn't know that.

(6) We keep being told that the biologist is the psychologist's secret weapon against Area X. I'm not convinced the reason for this was established. Yes, she's socially awkward and interested in nature and yes, her husband was on a previous expedition. But given the biologist's ultimate fate, I guess the psychologist was just wrong?

(7) We find out at some point in the previous book, or early in this one, that the psychologist went on an unauthorized mission into Area X and brought back a plant (the plant is definitely in book 2). Why was she able to do this when none of the official expeditions were all that successful (her companion was clearly damaged by the experience, but she didn't really change)?

Anyway, there were enough dropped threads and missed connections that I was not terribly satisfied with the conclusion of this trilogy. (I pretty much only read speculative fiction these days so it's not like I'm new to the genre, so my issue is not lack of familiarity with the types of stories that are told.) I like Mr. Vandermeer's writing style and would definitely consider buying other books of his. I'm just a little disappointed with this book. The series started out so strongly!
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Anaxamaxan
VINE VOICE
3.0 out of 5 stars Why is this book popular?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 19, 2022
Verified Purchase
The first book in the series Annihilation was reasonably good. The second, Authority, was like reading a transcript of C-SPAN. I pushed through that one because I'd read reviews saying that Acceptance made it worthwhile. It didn't. There are some vivid moments, and where Vendermeer's writing was frequently clunky in the first two volumes in Acceptance it's more refined. Yet ultimately very little of significance happens here. I found it hard to care about any of the characters, while the meaning of the overall story is blurry at best. Something something about ecological degradation, something something about time dilation and transference to another world. It's like pondering the "meaning" of a mountain. It's interesting to look at, has some surprising and vivid features, but ultimately it simply is. I guess that's why the title is Acceptance.
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iank
5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable Surreal Fiction
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 17, 2014
Verified Purchase
Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, of which Acceptance is the last book, is unusual in my experience. I don't usually like surreal or "fantastic" fiction. I don't usually like the ambiguous and dream like quality of this style of fiction. Although I had tried VanderMeer's earlier book  Finch , I didn't finish it. The Southern Reach Trilogy was different however.

VanderMeer is a master of describing the atmosphere of place. In both 
Annihilation  (the first book of the trilogy) and Acceptance VanderMeer writes about a version of Northern Florida's "Forgotten Coast" that has become Area X. His description of the pristine wilderness of Area X, combined with the lurking menace is compelling and unforgettable. I found VanderMeer's description of the Forgotten Coast so strong and compelling that I looked it up on the web and would like to visit someday.

In the second book of the trilogy, 
Authority , the setting is the Southern Reach, an organization that was created to research Area X. Instead of the description of wilderness, there is a description of a claustrophobic institution and bureaucracy, with, again, Area X the lurking menace in the background. I found the warping of the Southern Reach and of the people who work there uncomfortable reading. Authority was the bridge novel between the start and end of the trilogy and I didn't like it as much as Annihilation and Acceptance.

The characters in Acceptance are Control (the Southern Reach Director John Rodriguez from Authority), Ghost Bird, an avatar of the Biologist from Authority, the Psychologist, and Southern Reach Director, who lead the expedition in Annihilation and Grace, the Southern Reach second in command under Control and the Psychologist.

A minor digression: Normally I have an almost allergic reaction to writing in the second person ("You find yourself in a large automobile. And you ask yourself...") VanderMeer is the first writer that I've read where I felt that the second person perspective worked well. In Acceptance VanderMeer uses the second person in the sections on the Psychologist. The narrative was easier to follow since the second person signaled a switch to the Psychologist's world.

The setting in Acceptance moves between the Psychologist when she was director at the Southern Reach and Area X. Acceptance provides background on Area X before it was walled off by "The Border". We learn about the lighthouse keeper and others who lived in Area X. We also see the growth of Area X and the arrival of The Border. But there are no clear answers as to what precisely Area X is and the mechanism of its formation. There are suggestions and sketches of what it might be and who created it. But Area X is never completely fathomed.

Humans create stories to explain what they can't understand. Modern science has allowed much of our common world to be explained by a rational structure. What we know and can understand is still limited. The universe remains a strange and unexplained place. In the Southern Reach trilogy Area X is beyond human understanding and exists via forces that humans can only glimpse.

What stands out in these books are the characters and the spaces they inhabit: the Southern Reach, Area X and Central (the parent organization of the Southern Reach). We see some of the inner lives of the characters, how their environment warps them and how they evolve and change. The plot of the Southern Reach trilogy is ambiguous, but what is unforgettable is the characters and the pristine menace of Area X's Forgotten Coast.
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C.L.Cohen
4.0 out of 5 stars Acceptance: Sometimes Difficult to Accept
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 16, 2015
Verified Purchase
Jeff Vandermeer’s Acceptance completes the Southern Reach Trilogy with detailed descriptions and complex sentences, sucking us into a world that’s changing. Here is where we expect answers, demand resolutions to the why those changes occur and what will happen to the major characters: the Biologist, Control, the Lighthouse Keeper, the Psychologist, and her assistant, Grace. Yet here is where we find true changes; changes in perspective on the landscapes of Area X, and changes in point of view.

The first book, Annihilation, is written from the first-person point of view of the Biologist on the twelfth expedition into Area X. Authority, the second book, is written from the limited third-person point of view of Control as he struggles in his new position as Director of Southern Reach. As changes have occurred within Area X, the border expanding, the wildlife being absorbed and mutated, so do changes in perspective occur within the book. Acceptance includes multiple points of view: the Biologist’s first-person perspective AND the third-person limited from Control’s eyes. Acceptance adds the third-person point of view through the Lighthouse Keeper and we see the Psychologist’s childhood in ground zero of Area X and learn about the strange Science and Séance Brigade through his eyes. But the changes don’t stop there. A second-person point of view is added which observes the Psychologist prior to the twelfth expedition. The unknown voice speaks directly to the Psychologist and we have to wonder who this new speaker is? We can only assume it is the voice of Area X’s creator, but this is never confirmed. This whole jumping back and forth between different types of viewpoints creates a feeling of unease in the reader and pulls you into the chaos and confusion of those expedition members who came back from Area X different, changed, damage psychologically and physically so that they died in less than a year. All accept for Lowry, who continues his deranged pursuit of conquering Area X from the safe distance of Central…or is it a controlled lab so his own changes can be easily observed?

The affect is unnerving as we scramble over these changes in point of view, changes in Area X and changes in us, because of the answers we are compelled to seek. Like Control, who clutches Whitby’s terroir report, we seek answers to our questions: Who or what is behind the changes in Area X? What does it mean for humanity? But like the Lighthouse Keeper’s father told him, “Once the questions snuck in, whatever had been certain became uncertain. Questions opened the way for doubt.” So we follow the Lighthouse Keeper into the cryptic world of Area X as it impregnates Earth with – we know not what - and are only partially satisfied with the answers.

Answers, like candy, often leave us with more questions, and though this is true in the world of Jeff Vandermeer’s Acceptance, it is perhaps the most original dystopian I have read in a long time. The writing style, the characters and the plot are compelling and definitely worth the read!

Rhodes FitzWilliam
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Josh Mauthe
4.0 out of 5 stars There may be no answers, but that doesn't really detract from the strange, unsettling atmosphere
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 21, 2015
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Anyone hoping for answers or clarity in Acceptance, the final entry in the Southern Reach series, was probably frustrated and irritated to no small degree. Instead, Acceptance moves around in time, following the mysterious lighthouse keeper in his final days before the "arrival" of Area X, catching up with Control and his companion after the end of Authority, and filling in some of the gaps that we've discovered along the way in the series. And as anyone who read the opening book in the series might expect, Acceptance ends as enigmatically as it all began, giving us hints, clues, and ripples moving away from events that we're never quite clear on and never fully comprehending. It's an ending that could be frustrating and infuriating for so many reasons, but it seems appropriate for the Southern Reach series, a trilogy which has always been about confronting the unknown and realizing that some things will ultimately be incomprehensible to us, no matter how much we think we know. It's a Lovecraftian idea, really, and at Acceptance's finest moments, it channels that vibe perfectly, whether it's the way he handles the arrival of Area X (in what becomes one of the most disturbing and nightmarish scenes of the series), the enigmatic climax, or the eerie, inexplicable touches that he peppers the book with but never pushes too far. As a trilogy, the Southern Reach is hard to explain; it's obvious that the first book is the best, and in some ways, the series never really needed a second or third volume. But taken as a whole, they create a fascinating mosaic effect, giving us a slew of pieces that add up to something incomprehensible and unsettling - and maybe all the more so because it feels so close to understandable, and yet so far. In some ways, it's a series I admire more than I truly like, Annihilation excepted, and yet I can't deny that as Acceptance picked up steam, I was entranced by its utterly alien world and its uncanny way of burrowing under my skin and never leaving. It's not a series that's for all tastes, and if you're looking for answers, you'll hate it. But for those who admire the atmosphere and unease of truly weird fiction, Acceptance is a perfect final chapter in this strange, unsettling series.
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J. W. Kennedy
3.0 out of 5 stars Ends with a resounding HUH?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 30, 2015
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I don't know what I was hoping for - so how can I say that I was disappointed? Well, anyway, I was.

This, the third volume of the Southern Reach trilogy, is a trilogy within itself since it is divided into three sections. The first section consists of narrative that alternates chapter by chapter between four characters: Saul the lighthouse keeper, whose story takes place on the "forgotten coast" before it became Area X ... "Control" the new Former Director of the Southern Reach, who exists in Area X in the subjective present ... "Ghost Bird" the returned biologist from the twelfth expedition, who is with Control, but since she is not really the biologist but an Area X-made copy she has a slightly different perspective ... the previous Director of the Southern Reach, whose story takes place before the events in volume 1: Annihilation. The first three characters are narrated in third person (except for excerpts from Saul's terse pronounless "no-person" daily log at the beginning of each of his chapters) while the Director's chapters are narrated in the rare _second_ person (in which "you" are the Director.) There is undoubtedly some clever meta-literary reason for this structure. I thought it helped in keeping the story straight so you know who you're reading about and sort of where it fits in the timeline.

Halfway through the book, we get to read the biologist's second journal, which is a direct sequel to "Annihilation." This is done in first-person, so all of the possible narrative voices are represented in one compact volume with a creepy pink owl on the cover.

Lots of new information is revealed which casts previous events in a whole new light. Several times I went "OH! So that's why so-and-so was acting that way" but in the end, none of the really significant questions were answered. What is Area X? What created it? What is its purpose? There are clues enough, I suppose, but you have to put them together yourself. The characters don't seem to ever figure it out, beyond some vague hint that it's some sort of life-preservation capsule from another world. Maybe?

The surreal dreamy quality started to get tedious in this volume, along with the philosophical musings about the nature of identity, perception of reality, etc. How do we know we are who we are, and that we are where we think we are? How much of what we remember is true? What happens to whatever it is that makes us "us" when we die? Why does any of this matter?

Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to read all three of these books in such rapid succession. I got tired. I can't give lots of stars to a book that makes me tired. It's technically well written - the prose is crafted with poetic precision - but my feeling toward it is MEH. This isn't a trilogy I would keep to read again.
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Antonio Urias
4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderfully Strange and Uncanny Achievement
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 23, 2015
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Acceptance: A Novel is the third and final chapter in Jeff VanderMeer's carefully and meticulously unfolded Southern Reach Trilogy. Having grappled with the mystery of Area X first through the narrow eyes of a failed expedition and then through the crumbling descent into madness of the organization meant to study it, Acceptance opens the story tying all the characters' plots and arcs together.

The Southern Reach Trilogy was always an ambitious endeavor. The nature of Area X is its central mystery and one that by its very nature is not wholly definable. Indeed to explain Area X would in some way rob the trilogy of its otherworldly power. It is beyond true human understanding, and luckily VanderMeer remains committed to the wonder and pure Otherness. A few answers are forthcoming, but they remain nebulous and, crucially, not entirely substantiated. Area X remains almost as unknowable as it was in the beginning.

This is not just the story of Area X, however, it is the story of human interaction and response in the face of the otherworldly, the uncanny. The previous novels with their tight focus first on the biologist and then on Control, were unable to show the whole human picture and hinted at mysteries and threads that all come to fruition her.

Disliked and misunderstood by the biologist, Control spent much of the second novel under her shadow piecing together the ruins she left behind, the former Director's lifelong relationship with Area X, her plans and desperate machinations, her hopes are finally revealed. As broken as the rest, she emerges as a tragic figure whose glimmer of understanding sets her apart and ultimately breaks her.

The emotional heart of the novel, however, is Saul Evans's story—the lighthouse keeper. His slow inevitable transformation into the Crawler on the stairs writing the same phrase over and over is an exquisite piece of existential horror, and serves as an origin story for Area X as a whole.

Acceptance is a fitting and, for me at least, satisfying conclusion. Jeff VanderMeer has managed to tie up the lingering human mysteries and stories while maintaining the nightmarish, uncanny power at the heart of the story. A wonderfully strange and uncanny achievement.
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SephSpirit84
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfying end to a fantastic Trilogy!
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 19, 2019
Verified Purchase
This being the final installment to the Southern Reach Trilogy, I enjoyed it immensely!

First I enjoyed the first book Annihilation and the sequel Authority, after enjoying the film version 'Annihilation' which I didn't enjoy as much as 'The Southern Reach Trilogy' books.

'Acceptance' was such a satisfying ending to me and kind of shocked by the negative reviews but then I felt these stories hit me on a more personal level than I was originally prepared for when I read them. The biologist was my favorite character throughout and I loved getting insight on her along with more characters I thought were forgotten after 'Authority' .

While there isn't a huge reveal of anything at the end, I felt you got to know more than I felt was even necessary for the characters and even Area X, which became a character it'self which I really thought was a nice touch. The author gives great depth to what it would be like to encounter Area X and how it started and not necessarily where it came from through his characters.

Like I said though I loved this more from a personal battle I've been having with depression and a bad life situation. It was a nice escape into a like mind(biologist) while giving me room to identify myself into something wondrous and weird. Unlike others I wasn't expecting a huge grand reveal on what Area X is/was since even the characters never really could and probably would not. I did not find the end as a huh? moment though like others it made me realize our journeys are as organic as Area X, very much alive and at times different, terrifying but very real. You do get an idea of Area X though, it's all there if you want it to be. Great stories are the ones that don't need to be explained thoroughly but they need to give you the information to figure the ending out for yourself.

Seriously I loved this trilogy and I do plan on reading it through again someday! Worth your time if you have a open mind and love Horror-SciFi that requires thought.
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The Moviegoer
4.0 out of 5 stars NO SPOILERS - TOUGH BOOK(S) TO REVIEW
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 9, 2014
Verified Purchase
NO PLOT SPOILERS. This is a tough book to review - and yes, all three installments are really just one book. Taken together, they represent a kind of artistic perfection - by which I mean an almost flawless combination of intention and execution. Like "Area X" itself, the language of the novel exerts a mesmerizing, hypnotic power that is both rigorously detailed and blankly impenetrable. Ultimately it reminded me not of the TV show "Lost," - a comparison I've seen in reviews that I think is not useful - but of the movie adaptation of "2001: A Space Odyssey:" lots of ambiguity, lots of half-hidden menace, lots of fear expressed as paranoia and dysfunction between the "specialists" who have absolutely no tools to comprehend what's going on around them. The author seems to reinforce this alienation from their environment by purposely alienating them from us - not just by (mostly) stripping them of names, but also by banishing from the book(s) any hint of levity, lightness, warmth or humor. Everyone - the tenacious reader too - is infected with the novel's invasive tone of loss, impotence and impending disaster. Is it compelling? Well, for fans of this genre - absolutely. As most of the reviews have noted, we are being guided through the Southern Reach and Area X by a masterful prose artist who has conjured an infectious spell of mystery and wonder and dread and - incredibly - maintained it utterly. Is it "satisfying?" (and here the comparisons to "Lost" seem to appear) - again, genre fans might be more accepting of the book's phantasmagorical finale than the casual reader. Finally, is it "entertaining?" I think the pleasure in reading these books is derived from seeing them through to the end - much like the characters themselves - rather than any great revelation that might be waiting at their conclusion ...
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Tom Alaerts
4.0 out of 5 stars A satisfying conclusion, yet could be more crisp at times.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 24, 2014
Verified Purchase
I just finished "Acceptance" by Jeff Vandermeer, the concluding volume in his Southern Reach trilogy.
All in all a satisfying conclusion from this remarkable series, one of the few weird stories that are a true success in (long) novel length, and this one is even crafted like a literary novel.
Different from the previous 2 volumes are the multiple viewpoints, including the difficult to do well 2nd person form. But it is all well done, even if sometimes there is some vagueness -which I also noticed in volume 1, and not in the crisp volume 2. This occasional feeling of vagueness precludes in my opinion the trilogy to be a true masterpiece (I also always felt it being overhyped), but it is very very good indeed. I found it truly atmospheric as well.
It is also a conclusion, we have a better idea about the underlying mystery, even while everything is not explained or even inferred - I don't mind that residual mystery. Though part of the residual mystery is because of the occasional vagueness that I mentioned above. In a way the story structure is reminding me of the Lost tv series (crossed with Lovecraft's "The colour out of space"): multiple viewpoints, and a mystery that spirals further and further out of control, yet at the end enough is understood. I must say that the conclusion of Acceptance is a lot more satisfying than that of Lost though !
I understood that the movie rights have been bought by Ridley Scott's company. Now if it ever gets adapted, I rather hope it will be done as a good compact TV series like True Detective. That could work well. Reducing the story to one movie would only give a superficial feel.
In short: a recommended read for amateurs of weird fiction, esp. if you do not want to start reading unfinished series, that is not an issue anymore.
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