# @deadinkbooks on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/C1FY4DeOb8x
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/19237984-deadinkbooks-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/15887d46e4.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-12-20T18:02:59.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Dead Ink Books (@deadinkbooks) — https://gondola.cc/deadinkbooks

## Caption

🎄🎁 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, not in the conventional sense — but how does that make her any different from the person she came from?

THE SOUTHERN REACH benefits greatly from being read as it was released, in quick succession, swallowing the reader just as Area X intends to swallow all that it touches. A resonant eco-horror, all these years later.

Have you read all three? Do you have a favourite? Let us know what your book of the year is down below! 👇 

#deadinkadvent2023 #booksasgifts #bookrecommendations #southernreach #annihilation #authority #acceptance #southernreachtrilogy #jeffvandermeer #scifi

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## Tags

bookrecommendations, scifi, deadinkadvent2023, southernreach, jeffvandermeer, acceptance, annihilation, authority, southernreachtrilogy, booksasgifts

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