"I don't care what happens to my soul. I don’t care if there’s still a me. But I really want there to be a you. The world makes more sense, if there's a you."

Stars (Out of 10): 10/10 Stars

Favorite Character: Vincent! (I mean, a lot of this may also have to do with the amazing narrator)

Spoiler Free: There will be spoilers for the first two books in this review, as I really can’t discuss this book without mentioning important plot points from them!

When I first started listening to this book (definitely check out the audiobooks, they make the story even better!), I was surprised by the huge time jump. The story has jumped about a decade from where Waking Gods left off, and we now see the cast older and ready to escape from the alien world they’ve been stuck on. A lot has changed it seems, Eva is older, and Vincent and Rose seem much more morally flexible.

Thankfully, we get the answers to all our questions anyways, as the story follows a parallel structure, telling the story on from the time jump while still explaining what we missed in those ten decades. Vincent and Eva have also learned a new language, the one of the aliens, which is amazing to listen to spoken, and finds its way tied in with the normal English the narrators speak (for example, Eva seems very fond of an alien curse word.) The way these two tales are blended together are done an in amazing way, as I loved both learning about the past and seeing where the future went (as Earth is very different now).

A lot happens in the plot, with an interesting twist/tale in both the past storyline and the present storyline. I was enthralled the entire story, as there were never any lulls or empty spaces in the story. There was always something going on, something to pay attention to, and I loved it. Additionally, it wrapped up the story very well, and tied together all the loose ends amazingly.

The characters, once again, were fantastic. While we were unfortunately missing some of my favorites (Kara and The Interviewer), the story was still just as full of emotion and conflict with our smaller crew. I especially love that this story carries itself so well on friendships/familial relationships that almost no romance is needed to keep it interesting. This story especially focused on the father/daughter relationship of Vincent and Eva, and what happened to that while on the alien planet. This led to a lot of super emotional scenes that the audiobook narrators did a fantastic job of bringing to life (if I had just read this book instead of listened, I probably wouldn’t have cried as much. That’s how good that audiobook is)

We also get almost all the answers in this book. Books 1 and 2 left many gaps in terms of the aliens, we could only ever guess at what they wanted and their future plans. Now, we finally get those answers in the best form ever, a trip to the world itself. We even get to learn their culture, portions of their language, and the conflicts affecting them. It’s all very interesting, and brings this book to an entirely other level.

Overall, I absolutely loved this series, and cannot wait to see what Neuvel brings out. This book had science and plot, yet still was full of emotion, full of humanity. Each book seemed to get better, which doesn’t happen often with a series, and it will be a series I will definitely carry in my heart for a while.