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A review by storytold
Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer
5.0
Reread April 2022: I could not have had a more different experience reading this book a second time. I've never jacked a 3-star book up to 5 stars before, I'm elated. I disagree with everything I said below. I am impressed by the structure of this book, in part because I can see the seams in a few places; I wonder if it was difficult to stitch this together, to take these character histories and craft a narrative. This lacks the smoothness of the previous two volumes, but that's thematically the point, isn't it: a fracturing, a taking apart & resealing.
It felt at times as though parts of this book were written first in the trilogy, and yet other parts felt like they were hastily added as a necessary bridge—a retcon, to make this book work at all (the biologist's letter)—and then the structure was worked around it. I think it's this I tripped over last time: how the biologist changed her mind from Annihilation, in contradiction to how that book ends. This trilogy is better understood, for me, as one book, with this as its glaring error: Annihilation had to end. The biologist's journey had to be its own book. It is, functionally, the biologist's ending; yet her story is continued in Acceptance in the form of a letter, solely to give context to Ghost Bird's and Control's journeys.
It works from the angle of character arcs, but not from the angle of structuring the books. This was the hardest thing to wrap my head around, and even as it made Control and Ghost Bird's arcs work, it weakened the three of their stories. I still found that Ghost Bird and Control were the weaker parts of the book, and I wonder if this reliance on the biologist's retcon is responsible. Their stories dragged, though this eventually paid off as it was made clear that neither of them is in their original form anymore. The way Ghost Bird warms to Control, the way she has a fundamentally different disposition from the biologist—the way the biologist unravels Control, of course she does, Ghost Bird did too—all this felt out of character to me on the first read. It still does, but with purpose. That is the point: they are all evolving. Control himself learns the truth in Area X as Ghost Bird does, finding his own story retconned as well: forced to confront the idea that he had not acted as he claimed in Authority. Then there's the idea that no documentation is true, even the book itself; that the truth is found only within Area X, yet this itself taken into question as everything is remade.
Like, hell. Fuck! Look at all these questions. It's a book driven by theme as much as character. It makes a few implied themes of the series textual, deepens the trenches of others, raises new questions that are not intended to be answered. There are obviously parts of this book I still don't think I completely understood. Whether Area X is really off-Earth, or if the unraveling of time matters to how the forgotten coast and the apocalyptic visions experienced by anyone passing through the border unhypnotized overlap with Area X. I loved how much was poorly understood specifically due to communication incompatibility.
Ultimately the various points of view, the character narratives becoming one over time as they stitched together, made the book—even for the flaws of the method. The way we jump from the biologist's dissolution to Saul's, to Control's, to Cynthia's, even to Lowry's was extremely good. Every one of these characters reacted to Area X with intensity, all from such different places. The time we spent with both Saul and Cynthia were eagerly anticipated sections, in part because they were so clearly thought out, and in part because Saul and Gloria's connection knocked me the fuck out. I finished this book and sobbed and it wasn't even the first TIME.
This is not a 5-star book, but it's a 5-star series. I so enjoyed this reread that it earned the rating. The very definition of rounded up for enjoyment. I can't wait to read this again in another few years.
*
April 2019:
This book has no plot structure to speak of, had moments of lazy character writing (a definite weakness of the series), and did not end on a satisfying note, but I enjoyed the ride so much. This book felt like collated author's notes more than it did a structured book -- but I paused here a long time thinking of the series and smiling. It does bring the three books together, forging connections between them; I did like that. I have the sense that, were I to re-read them (and I likely will), my experience will be enriched having read the third.
That said, this book is the least essential, least structured and least satisfying of the three, and totally optional. It raises more questions and doesn't answer enough, but it creates the sense of a complex history that pieces together just so, with the connections of fiction and the complexity of known and unknown life. I'm very fond!! This book does NOT resolve anything and it doesn't make sense as a standalone book, which makes it a deeply flawed tome. But as a wrap-up to a beloved series, I had weird fun and enjoyed absolutely beautiful writing in the process.
It felt at times as though parts of this book were written first in the trilogy, and yet other parts felt like they were hastily added as a necessary bridge—a retcon, to make this book work at all (the biologist's letter)—and then the structure was worked around it. I think it's this I tripped over last time: how the biologist changed her mind from Annihilation, in contradiction to how that book ends. This trilogy is better understood, for me, as one book, with this as its glaring error: Annihilation had to end. The biologist's journey had to be its own book. It is, functionally, the biologist's ending; yet her story is continued in Acceptance in the form of a letter, solely to give context to Ghost Bird's and Control's journeys.
It works from the angle of character arcs, but not from the angle of structuring the books. This was the hardest thing to wrap my head around, and even as it made Control and Ghost Bird's arcs work, it weakened the three of their stories. I still found that Ghost Bird and Control were the weaker parts of the book, and I wonder if this reliance on the biologist's retcon is responsible. Their stories dragged, though this eventually paid off as it was made clear that neither of them is in their original form anymore. The way Ghost Bird warms to Control, the way she has a fundamentally different disposition from the biologist—the way the biologist unravels Control, of course she does, Ghost Bird did too—all this felt out of character to me on the first read. It still does, but with purpose. That is the point: they are all evolving. Control himself learns the truth in Area X as Ghost Bird does, finding his own story retconned as well: forced to confront the idea that he had not acted as he claimed in Authority. Then there's the idea that no documentation is true, even the book itself; that the truth is found only within Area X, yet this itself taken into question as everything is remade.
Like, hell. Fuck! Look at all these questions. It's a book driven by theme as much as character. It makes a few implied themes of the series textual, deepens the trenches of others, raises new questions that are not intended to be answered. There are obviously parts of this book I still don't think I completely understood. Whether Area X is really off-Earth, or if the unraveling of time matters to how the forgotten coast and the apocalyptic visions experienced by anyone passing through the border unhypnotized overlap with Area X. I loved how much was poorly understood specifically due to communication incompatibility.
Ultimately the various points of view, the character narratives becoming one over time as they stitched together, made the book—even for the flaws of the method. The way we jump from the biologist's dissolution to Saul's, to Control's, to Cynthia's, even to Lowry's was extremely good. Every one of these characters reacted to Area X with intensity, all from such different places. The time we spent with both Saul and Cynthia were eagerly anticipated sections, in part because they were so clearly thought out, and in part because Saul and Gloria's connection knocked me the fuck out. I finished this book and sobbed and it wasn't even the first TIME.
This is not a 5-star book, but it's a 5-star series. I so enjoyed this reread that it earned the rating. The very definition of rounded up for enjoyment. I can't wait to read this again in another few years.
*
April 2019:
This book has no plot structure to speak of, had moments of lazy character writing (a definite weakness of the series), and did not end on a satisfying note, but I enjoyed the ride so much. This book felt like collated author's notes more than it did a structured book -- but I paused here a long time thinking of the series and smiling. It does bring the three books together, forging connections between them; I did like that. I have the sense that, were I to re-read them (and I likely will), my experience will be enriched having read the third.
That said, this book is the least essential, least structured and least satisfying of the three, and totally optional. It raises more questions and doesn't answer enough, but it creates the sense of a complex history that pieces together just so, with the connections of fiction and the complexity of known and unknown life. I'm very fond!! This book does NOT resolve anything and it doesn't make sense as a standalone book, which makes it a deeply flawed tome. But as a wrap-up to a beloved series, I had weird fun and enjoyed absolutely beautiful writing in the process.