Review: Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Obsidio
(The Illuminae Files #3)
Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Release: March 13, 2018
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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, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

Review:
I'm calling it now. The Illuminae Files is one of the BEST YA sci-fi series I've ever read and Obsidio is the finale the series deserved! I will try to keep this review spoiler-free. If you haven't read this series yet, stop right here and go read them now!

I was so excited and scared to start this book coming off a recent audiobook reread of Illuminae and Gemina. The first two books had such amazing characters and heart-stopping, twisty, action-packed plots that I couldn't even begin to fathom what would happen in this last book. Let's just say that this book had a big job set for it with all of the plotlines and character arcs it had to tie up. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how it was going to do it. 

I’m so glad to report that for me, Obsidio completely knocked it out of the park and surpassed all of my very high expectations. It was an immensely satisfying conclusion that stayed true to all of the elements I loved from the first two books. It had the well-developed characters, insane plot with the on the edge of your seat suspense, beautiful original designs and images, and, of course, the incomparable and creepy as hell AIDAN.

I was so stuck on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next that I didn’t take the time to consider how sad I would be to see these characters’ story end. But now that it’s over, I’m realizing just how much I’m going to miss navigating new adventures with them.

The majority of the cast were so well developed from the previous books, but here we are given even more context and character development for the Illuminae Group as they execute their final face off with BeiTech. The addition of Asha and Rhys, both who I love dearly after this book, just added even more depth to the story and crew.

I wasn’t sure if I could be shocked in the same way by the plot of this book after the first two but I was. Honestly, I was about ready to have a heart attack trying to guess everyone’s next moves the whole time. I never got them right but that is one of the best and most nerve-wracking things I've loved about this whole series. And like the previous books in this series, this one made me both laugh out loud and cry my eyes out in parts. Thanks for the emotional trauma, Jay and Amie.

Can we just give a slow clap to the whole design team for how beautiful this book was? The formatting, the sketches, and all of the visual details that set these books apart were fantastic and so excellently done. These books are some of the prettiest and most unique books I own on my shelves.

I absolutely adored this book and this series! I listened to most of this book on audio and I can't recommend it enough! Like Illuminae and Gemina, it's a full-cast, full sound effect recording and I can't even begin to explain just how awesome they are. Just take my word for it and go try them out. I'm so sad that this series is over but I can't wait to get my hands on the next series Jay and Amie write together!

    

  5 / 5 Stars

My reviews of other books in this series:
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff