Review--Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

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.

I finally finished the conclusion to Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff’s hit series, The Illuminae Files, Obsidio! It was as awesome as expected! All expectations were exceeded, as expected! Lol! In this final installment we meet a new set of characters and also get to see the ones we’ve already fell in love with as well, which I wasn’t expecting so much to the degree it was met at, so that was a happy surprise!

We meet Kady’s cousin, Asha Grant as she lives on Kerenza IV and is a part of a secret rebel group that is trying to get rid of BeiTech who have taken over their home. Life on Kerenza has changed drastically with food shortages and curfews and of course, the soldiers who tear apart their planet. Things are crazy! So when Asha comes face to face with her ex-boyfriend, Rhys, who just happens to be a team member of BeiTech things get dicey. Asha’s fellow rebels think that Rhys can be turned over to their side and be used as an inside man, but Asha isn’t too sure. There’s a lot of history between her and Rhys and not all of it was pleasant.

We also get to see segments between Kady, Ezra, Ella, Nik, and Hannah as well as they are trying to band together their motley crew of survivors from the ships that have previously fell. But the odds are against them as they will not have enough food and oxygen to last them on their journey to Kerenza to take down BeiTech. Not only that, but there’s tension in the air regrading Syra being the new leader and her plans for the crew.

And what would the story be without our favorite AI, AIDAN? AIDAN will always be a mystery to me. Ignoring the fact that it’s a computer, but the way it actually thinks and perhaps even feels? It’s scary, yet not. It acts in the way a human might when it comes the hard decisions. The fact that it has lasted this long in the trilogy always baffled me, and oddly, not. It makes sense for AIDAN to continue to play a role in the course of things.

I truly never thought a book like Illuminae, Gemina, and Obsidio would hold my attention so tight. Upon hearing that the story is told in a course of emails, notices, video chats, and an assortment of other type documents, I was never really sure how a story could unfold and yet still make sense. But Amie and Jay truly make this process work! I could never even fathom the idea of writing like this for the entire book! All 600+ pages of it! Of course we had a good deal of artwork to enjoy on some of these pages as well, some of which was illustrated by the fabulous Marie Lu!

The Illuminae Files is definitely a sight to behold! This is without a doubt one of the most unique series I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading! It blew me away from the getgo and held me entranced for just as long! I’ve always struggled with futuristic/space-ish books, but with this series I was able to fall into the story so easily, so seamlessly, that when I finally turned the last page, I was saddened that there wasn’t more. I was even more saddened this time around as this is the final book of the trilogy!

There was plenty of action in this one! If you think a book composed of chats, letters, notices, and emails can’t be thrilling and on the edge of your seat riddled with action, you’d be wrong! There was plenty of action and suspense in this one! Moments that had me gasping and holding my breath! The added romances between the three starring couples were still acknowledge as well, I suspected seeing Asha and Rhys rekindle their old flame and fighting it as well, but being able to see moments with the other two was a happy surprise! Speaking of which, there were surprises at every turn in this epic story and my emotions were basically continually punched over and over with the ordeals that Amie and Jay made me go through.

Obsidio was the thrill ride adventure I had been so badly waiting for ever since reading Gemina two years ago! It had everything I was hoping for in a finale and then some! I hope that this will not be the last time Amie and Jay write a series together because these two are just incredible awesome. Mind. Blown.

Bravo!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars