Title: Acceptance (Southern Reach #3)

Author: Jeff Vandermeer

Publisher: FSG 2014

Genre: Thriller

Pages: 340

Rating:  4/5 stars

Reading Challenges: Fall Reading Challenge; Read Your Freebies; Seriously Series; 52 Books - W46

It is winter in Area X, the mysterious wilderness that has defied explanation for thirty years, rebuffing expedition after expedition, refusing to reveal its secrets. As Area X expands, the agency tasked with investigating and overseeing it--the Southern Reach--has collapsed on itself in confusion. Now one last, desperate team crosses the border, determined to reach a remote island that may hold the answers they've been seeking. If they fail, the outer world is in peril.

Meanwhile, Acceptance tunnels ever deeper into the circumstances surrounding the creation of Area X--what initiated this unnatural upheaval? Among the many who have tried, who has gotten close to understanding Area X--and who may have been corrupted by it?

A fitting and satisfactory end to a very strange science fiction trilogy.  I'm still working through all the information presented in this last volume.  We get answers, but those answers aren't always so clear.  I like the ambiguity in the hows and whys of Area X.  I liked getting into the brain of Ghost Bird and the Director a bit more.  But my favorite part was learning more about Saul.  I found the sections about the lighthouse keeper to be my favorites.  Very well written character and great back story.  I wanted to know more and more about him.  Sadly I knew it was all going to end.  I'll just have to fill in the gaps with my own imagination. Overall, a great unconventional trilogy.

Southern Reach:

• 1. Annihilation
• 2. Authority
• 3. Acceptance