Tag: Acceptance

Book Review – Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer

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Acceptance is a 2014 science fiction horror novel by Jeff VanderMeer and the third novel in the Southern Reach trilogy. With the Southern Reach having fallen and the fate of the world unknown after Area X started to expand, Control and Ghost Bird embark upon their own expedition into this anomalous landscape in the hopes of reaching a remote island that they believe may hold the answers they seek. For Control, it’s the secrets behind Area X and how to stop it from expanding; for Ghost Bird, it is the fate of the biologist from the twelfth expedition, of whom she is a copy, in the hopes of gaining closure and a better understanding of who she is separate from her progenitor.Read More »

Top 5 Books I Read in 2024

Ryan1 Comment

I’m getting to this a little late this year, but nevertheless it is time once again to look back on the year just finished and determine which books were my top five favourite. As usual, this isn’t listing books that came out last year, just the five books I read last year that I enjoyed the most, in no particular order.

I think this may be the most difficult time I’ve had making this list; I enjoyed most everything I read last year, but a good number of them don’t really feel worthy of this distinction to me. It seems I had a similar problem last year, but I feel more pointedly dispassionate this time. At any rate, let’s see what made the cut.Read More »

WWW Wednesday – December 18, 2024

Ryan1 Comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

Thief of TimeWith all of the reading time afforded to me at the moment with my new schedule, I decided to really go for it and started reading Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett, the next Discworld book that I need to read and the final in the “Death” subseries. It’s a little bittersweet to know that this will be the last one, I think for the first time during my read through of this series, but it’s been a long time coming too. So far, I’m enjoying it quite a book at about 160 pages in; in typical fashion it still feels like things are ramping up, though the stakes are fairly clear at this point. Once again an Igor is playing a supporting role, so apparently Pratchett really loves the idea of these characters, though I find reading their accents a little tiresome at times. Another small character from a previous book, Lu-Tze, has returned in a major role here. I love how seamlessly he brings characters back around like this.

Recently Finished

AcceptanceLast week I finished reading Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer, the third and final book in what used to be the Southern Reach trilogy. Skimming some of the reviews on Goodreads, I was surprised to see a fair amount of ambivalence and negativity about this book, as I personally loved it as a conclusion to the series. It provided enough information that I don’t feel like I was strung along grasping at comprehension, but it continued to be just so weird and nebulous that it preserved a sense of something ineffable going on. Though I’m very intrigued about what the newest novel, Absolution, could be about, I would be very satisfied if this was indeed the final word on this series. I think this is the first time I’ve finished a novel series in a year (I did not anticipate a new release, so I don’t count it). I’m hoping I can maybe turn this into a personal trend, at least occasionally. Better sometimes than never.

Reading Next

With things starting to ramp up and get busier with the holidays, I probably won’t try to read anything more than A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll; it’s irrational, but I hate the idea of starting a book at the end of the year and continuing it into the next.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – December 11, 2024

Ryan1 Comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

AcceptanceMy new work schedule is actually allowing me to get a good amount of reading done on a regular basis, so I’m well on my way to finishing Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer, the third novel in the Southern Reach trilogy. This is a nice change of pace after I took a little too long reading Authority. I know I mentioned this a little last week, but I really like how much this novel is providing clarity and revelation about Area X while still leaving me feeling like I don’t fully understand the why of everything that’s happening. A particular theme in this novel (perhaps the whole trilogy but emphasized here) is the limitations of human subjectivity and how that hinders its ability to understand something truly alien. It seems like further, deeper explanations are still forthcoming in the 100 or so pages I have left, and I hope I’m still happy with where it leaves me.

Recently Finished

Over the Garden Wall Tome of the UnknownLast week I read through Over the Garden Wall: Tome of the Unknown by Pat McHale and Jim Campbell, which was simply a delightful read. I’ve read some tie-in comic books to cartoons I like before, and I have always found them to be a little spotty. I expected this to be a little more throwaway, with its chapters containing random stories of little consequence to the series, and while that is somewhat true in that you don’t need to read this at all to have a fulfilling experience with the show, it does serve as a wonderful companion to the series, structuring each chapter in such a way that they actually fit between episodes and complement some of the character development we see in the show.

Reading Next

A Guest in the HouseI’m thinking I have to seriously consider another book to read, as I think I may finish Acceptance well ahead of the end of the month, and I’m not going to abstain from reading just because I finished something faster than I expected to. While I’m making up my mind about that, however, there are some graphic novels I want to read, namely A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll, a comic I wish very much that I’d taken the time to read during Halloween instead of the mediocre fare I did end up reading. A consolation to getting to it this late is that it should make for a fine Christmas ghost story, a tradition I’ve been meaning to embrace but never really have beyond enjoying adaptations of A Christmas Carol.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.

WWW Wednesday – December 4, 2024

Ryan1 Comment
www_wednesdays

WWW Wednesday is a weekly book meme run by Sam over at Taking on a World of Words. Check out her post and others over on her blog!

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

Currently Reading

AcceptanceThis week I’ve started reading Acceptance by Jeff VanderMeer, the third novel in the Southern Reach trilogy. I’m a good 100 pages or so in now, and I’m really enjoying how, once again, this novel is bringing a marked shift in how the narrative is told. While the first was epistolary from a single perspective and the second a more conventional, singular third-person one, this novel is presenting us with a number of different perspectives at significantly different points in time, all pertinent to Area X. What I especially like about this is how it is mixing things up, since things felt a little stagnant at times when solely from Control’s POV in the last book. Revelations have been a slow burn, and already I feel like I’m coming to understand things a little more, but it’s also still profoundly weird, raising yet more questions.

Recently Finished

Godzilla and Godzilla Raids AgainOver the weekend I finally finished reading Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again by Shigeru Kayama. This book took me a little longer to read than I would’ve liked, but this month has been busier with work, so I’m trying not to give myself too hard of a time with it. Overall, I enjoyed this reading experience very much, though some things clicked into place when the Afterword confirmed me that it was indeed written for a younger audience, as it definitely reads that way, with mixed results sometimes. Speaking of the Afterword, it actually really tied the whole reading experience together for me. While I may not have been in love with it purely as a novelization of those films, the book is a wonderful cultural artifact, and the background context given by the Afterword really helped to highlight the significance of these novellas and what went into their inception, endearing me to the whole package a lot more.

Reading Next

Over the Garden Wall Tome of the UnknownI’m determined to finish Acceptance this month above all else, so I’m not setting my mind on other concrete reading plans; I don’t want to set anymore lofty reading goals with the end of the year so close at hand. That being said, I’ve recently borrowed Over the Garden Wall: Tome of the Unknown by Pat McHale and Jim Campbell from the library. Though I was quite late to seeing the show, I’ve taken up the tradition of watching it every Halloween season since I first watched it. Naturally, when I saw this on the shelf, I wanted to read this too, so I should be getting to it pretty soon.

Until next time, thank you for reading! Feel free to share your own post down below.