Obsidio (The Illuminae Files #3)

SYNOPSIS:

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza--but who knows what they'll find seven months after the invasion? Meanwhile, Kady's cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza's ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys--an old flame from Asha's past--reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heros will fall, and hearts will be broken.

REVIEW

(4 STARS):

In this book, we follow the resistance movement in Kerenza IV, and how the Illuminae group tries so save them from certain death. I enjoyed that we got to see more of the previous relationships and old characters, but since there were so many things happening, it felt like there was not enough time for character development. This is a book that values action more than character growth, and usually, I prefer the opposite. It was nice to see the team reunited, but the time we spent with them wasn't enough. There was always something happening, some crazy idea in the oven, that made it hard to connect with the group. It's hard to breathe when you're reading the Illuminae files and there's no time to process all the information that's being dropped on you. If you like books like these, you should buy the trilogy. But if you're like me, you'll finish this book with a weird feeling on your chest: the feeling that something is amiss.

Yes, the book was still a pleasant read and it had the compelling design that makes it easy to go through. But it didn't surprise me, you know? For a final book, I was expecting something more mindblowing. It met my expectations, but it didn't surpass them. The ending was predictable and the plot-twists were barely shocking.

As a whole, I would give the whole trilogy 4 stars, but mostly because of Illuminae. In my opinion, Obsidio was better than Gemina, but it still had many issues. I didn't enjoy the lack of LGBTQA+ and racial representation. in the series, even though I saw the effort to improve that on this book. I found the three female main characters very similar and hard to distinguish. And lastly, the fact that the second and third books followed the same pattern of events was not very exciting.

I am, however, very excited to read more works by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman, for I think they make an incredible pair.