So, a step up from #2 for sure. Mostly because Control/John is only one of four point-of-view characters. A strange narration choice was made here: the two female POVs had their own female narrators, but only one male did the two male POVs. You already have three, why not just get a fourth at that point?

Control is changed really: he's still kind of incompetent and wildly unable to cope with anything much out of his comfort zone. And Area X is definitely way outside of it. I liked getting the backstories of the various characters and how they were interlaced with what was going on in the present of the book. Likewise with the former Director (who is always referred to as simply "the Director").

But, in the end, this did not wow me. I wanted it to. Quite a bit in fact, but it failed. The semi-academic tone adopted by VanderMeer just drains it. "Rocks digging into his posterior"? Who the hell thinks or talks like that outside scientific papers or when joking? Ghostbird/The Biologist is/are the only really likable character(s). Control never much appealed to me (which is why I disliked #2 so much). The Director has her moments. Saul, the lighthouse keeper, is good. But I didn't fine Grace, the deputy director, particularly sympathetic. It's just weak characterizations, I guess.
( )

4,4 stars

this is a series i'm sure i'll re-read some day, and i'll take my time with it properly. this is also a series i have a really hard time describing or reviewing, so i'm just going to leave it at "i loved it, and i finished reading it while crying and not really knowing why i was doing so." ( )

Very disappointed in this book. I really liked the first two books of the trilogy, but this one did nothing for me. There are multiple points of view in the book, timelines that shift from past to present, yet there is no satisfactory resolution of the whole Area X mystery. I bumped up from 2 stars given the quality of the writing. ( )

Della trilogia, anche se non mi ha fatto impazzire, salverei solo il primo volume, per il resto solo parecchia noia. Peccato perché l'idea di fondo non era male, così come lo stile di quest'ultimo libro. ( )

Jeff VanderMeer's final book in the Southern Reach Trilogy feels just as different from the first two books as the second book did from the first. As one would hope, "Acceptance" gives us some explanations behind the mysteries described in the first two books. But having read these explanations, I came away thinking they only look like explanations. I know a little more than I did before, but not nearly enough.

"Acceptance" was neither surprising nor scary nor completely satisfying. Unlike the first two books, "Acceptance" is heavy with multiple points-of-view. Characters from the previous books appear in both flashbacks and contemporary circumstances. We learn a number of different things about how Area X came to be, and the conspiracies it generated, and how secrets contained secrets like so many nesting Russian dolls. But there is much we don't learn as well.

The story of the TV show "LOST" comes to mind. By the end of the final season, we knew the puzzle pieces fit together, even if we couldn't quite visualize the cover on the puzzle box. The ending of "LOST" brought the story to a conclusion, however susceptible it may have been to different interpretations. (And admittedly, more than a few viewers were left frustrated.)

The ending of the Southern Reach Trilogy, however, seems to wander, as if the book itself were mirroring the minds of the people in the story, like the lighthouse keeper as he endures transformation. It makes me wonder if the author himself entered (and returned?) from Area X. In the end, the bits and pieces don't fit together. Rather than puzzle pieces in a box, they seem like a collection of artifacts in a cabinet of curiosities.
( )