Acceptance

This is probably going to be one of those trilogies where I just pretend that the second and third books don't exist. I don't think either adds much to what was a near-perfect little horror story. Which maybe isn't the fault of the books or the author. This trilogy trades on disorientation and suspense, and it's really hard to maintain those for any length of time. That's why Lovecraft only really wrote short stories.

Acceptance tries to explain what happened both before and after Annihilation. And while it's interesting, it's pretty unnecessary. I'm glad the biologist made it to the island and found something like peace. She got as close to a happy ending as she was going to (before she turned into a leviathan anyway). The story of the lighthouse keeper was interesting, but, again, I don't feel like it added much to the story.

Aside from the interlude into the biologist's story, this book sort of lost me in the middle. I had a hard time taking it seriously, because my brain had a hard time accepting so much disorientation. I checked out, mentally, for whole passages, and I don't think I missed much.

All that said, I did really like the ending, which had just the right amount of ambiguity for a story like this. But I probably could have stopped with the first book and been just as satisfied.

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