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Obsidio by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman
4.75

"The die is cast. But today we will shake the table upon which it lands."

Wow, what a way to end this amazing series! I really loved this whole series and each individual book so much, Illuminae is definitely my favourite book out of the three, but Gemina and Obsidio are a very close joint second place. Obsidio brings all of the characters from the first two books together as they leave jump station Heimdall and try to figure out where to go next. Their ships, the Hypatia and the Mao have suffered damage and they're running low on every single resource. Back on Kerenza IV we find out there are survivors of the initial attack and they have been under genocidial occupation for seven months. This book covered some really tough subjects that are incredibly relevant to reality and it handled them really well. I was so emotionally invested in this story, my heart was breaking for these characters and I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through. 

I think the main thing I love about this story was the way humanity was portrayed, there's a quote regarding how everyone is right, and everyone is wrong, and it really hit me.

"Everyone I see is doing the best they can with what they have.
Asha Grant, who never asked to be attacked.
Rhys Lindstrom, who neve understood what he was signing on for.
Yukiko Oshiro and most of her squadmates, just soldiers doing their jobs - an invading force, sure, but against a criminal operation, right?
Everyone, chum. Ella Malikova, mourning her murderous crime boss of a father, a man plenty of people would have said he gt what he deserved. Nik Malikov and Hanna Donnelly and Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, who all killed people in their turn. And killing's wrong... right?
Syra Boll, ignoring Ben Garver as she tried to hold hr crew together.
Ben Garver, trying to fight, unheard, for the people on the Mao who so badly need hearing.
Even AIDAN, willing to do what others wouldn't, killing two thousand so three thousand wouldn't die."</spoiler

And not mentioned in that quote but, the fearsome Christie who worries about his pets at home and saves the life of a stray cat at the sacrifice of his own.

It really shows that humans aren't necessarily evil, some are, sure, but most are good people being forced into really horrible situations - and that does not justify their actions in some of these cases, but it's so realistic. The empathy this book displayed for its characters was really lovely to read and it made me appreciate this story so much.

I did find that the storyline in some aspects was quite repetitive, I'm not sure why each book needed to have the characters pair off into hetero romances each time and while I loved each of the couples I did get a bit tired of the sameness of the dynamics between these characters.
I kind of wish Rhys had actually betrayed Asha, or maybe Nik or Ezra had actually died instead of magically managing to survive. It would've really given this book and series that extra edge but I guess as a YA book maybe that would've been just a bit much.
I also think the fact that this book dealt with so much death but the deaths were almost always strategically unknown people gave this book a bit of a disconnect. There were a few sad on page deaths that made an impact but I think it did the story a bit of a disservice to make the deaths seem so seperate from our main characters. That being said, the way they showed Hanna dealing with the death of her father in Gemina was really well done, and I also liked that her relationship with Nik was shown as tentative, they went through so much together in a short time and were possibly trauma bonded, so I think showing the different depths in relationships for example in comparison to Kady and Ezra who had been together a long time was well done.

The storyline itself was abolutely fantastic and as before I really loved the format of these books. I think this series is well worth the read and it has been added to my favourites list now - I'm really surprised this series isn't talked about more on social media. I would recommend this to those who loved Skyward or Star Wars, and to anyone who enjoys a really well thought out rebellion plotline and is able to overlook some slightly cringey immature moments, because they are greatly overwhelmed by everything else that happens in these books.