🎄🎁 DEAD INK ADVENT DAY 20 🎁🎄 Bekkii is Dead Ink's official runaround. Sometime they're in the bookshop, recommending queer lit and graphic novels; sometimes they're in the publishing office, fighting with Photoshop. Her book — rather, BOOKS, of the year, are the ones in THE SOUTHERN REACH trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer. It's a tricky series to recommend, because spiritually, Annihilation is a very different novel to the two that succeed it; but equally, that is part of the Southern Reach's charm — defying expectations, keeping you guessing, never entirely sure where you stand. Vandermeer's characters are exceptional. The Biologist, who has never known herself, carving out an identity in a landscape that wants to irrevocably alter every part of you; Control, who is by no means eponymous, finds himself thrown into a band of weirdos only to find out he is, in fact, one of the weirdos; and Ghost Bird, who is both familiar and isn't; both newborn and ancient, a person, but not quite, n...