Acceptance cover art

Acceptance

The Southern Reach Trilogy, Book 3

 Preview
LIMITED TIME OFFER

3 Months Free

$8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Get this deal
Offer ends on July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PT.
More purchase options

Acceptance

Written by: Jeff VanderMeer
Narrated by: Carolyn McCormick, Bronson Pinchot, Xe Sands
Get this deal

$8.99/mo. after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offer ends July 15, 2026 at 11:59pm PT.

Buy Now for $23.49

Buy Now for $23.49

It is winter in Area X, the mysterious wilderness that has defied explanation for 30 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?

©2014 VanderMeer Creative, Inc. (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Classics Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Horror Literary Fiction Science Fiction Scary
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
All stars
Most Relevant
Only when you read all three books for the second time will it make real sence. absolutly loved this series. Well written, well read, well done!

so good!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The ending was somewhat unsatisfying.
There's one loose end I was not happy with being left unexplained, but maybe that's the author's point. I guess it's supposed to be about stuff beyond human comprehension, but it still doesn't tie up to point at anything that leaves room for further thinking.

The ending was somewhat unsatisfying.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have been plodding through this series, only keeping going because the story is rather interesting and I want to see how it turns out. That said, from books 1 to 3, the audio performances have gone from bad to worse. This third book is almost unlisten-able.

Between books 2 and 3, the reading by Bronson Pinchot is maddeningly awful. His attempts at dramatic emphasis feel completely misplaced and ruins the rhythm of the text. I swore at the end of book 2 that I would not complete the series, it was that bad. But I pulled the trigger, only to find that he is BACK in book 3, with two others to "help".

Carolyn McCormick is not too bad a reader, but I felt that her performance let down book 1. Now, she is the best of the three in 3! But in her case the editing is sometimes ridiculously bad, mid-sentence going from clear to sounding like she is underwater. Or within a span of a couple of minutes, sounding like a paragraph was recorded in 4 separate takes, each 3 weeks apart.

And then there is Xe Sands, who's affected drawl is, simply, brutal.

Sorry for being so harsh, but I have listened to a lot of audio books and this was the first time I felt really strongly that the performance absolutely RUINED the story.

Bad to worse

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent book. McCormick's reading, however, was unnatural, overinflected, and hammy. She's a skilled performer, but was doing way way too much and made it hard to focus on the story.

Readers uneven

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
vandermeer reminds me of lovecraft in so many ways, all of them good. a crazy conclusion to a crazy trilogy. wonderful performances all around.

weird and wonderful

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews