Obsidio ~ Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff (The Illuminae Files #3)
★★☆☆☆
This was one of the most mind-numbingly boring piece of "literature" I've ever read. Everything that was good about this series was stripped away, leaving only the obnoxious, ridiculous, and downright formulaic parts.
Meet Rhys, the bad boy with a criminal past and tattoos, and hot white ex-boyfriend of the hot white girl. Said hot white girl is named Asha Grant, and she's a headstrong teenager (?) who somehow holds a leadership position despite having no qualifications. Don't worry about personality. They're sassy! That just about covers it, doesn't it?
Sound familiar?
That's because this is the third incarnation of Kady and Ezra, following Hana and Nik. In case you didn't already have it drilled into your thick skulls: HOT WHITE TEEN = GOOD, MOUSTACHE TWIRLING VILLAIN = BAD, AIDAN = THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THIS SERIES
Now, perhaps for the sake of originality, our author duo decided to drop the insidious psychological thriller part of the Illuminae plot Mad Libs and replaced it with...wait for it...more conspiracy intrigue! Yay! Everyone's favorite part!
I know for sure that it was my favorite part. Definitely loved the cheesy, melodramatic scenes in which Kady figuratively and literally stands on a table, points a finger at Leanne Frobisher and shouts, "SHE'S THE BAD GUY!" Those were so well-written and so engaging. They were amazing parts that really made the world feel real, and made our ragtag band of hot white teenagers a force to be reckoned with.
(In case it wasn't clear, I was being facetious. This book really wanted to make sure the sarcasm was spelled out. I don't want to confuse anyone. I-WAS-BEING-SARCASTIC. Did that help?)
And, yeah, sorry Beitech, but it turns out your psycho-virus only works in space. No symptoms whatsoever on landmasses like Kerenza. That would make too much sense. And don't worry about aliens! Those only exist in space too. It's not like psychological alien horror on a frozen landscape works or anything. There's absolutely no evidence of that!
No, our authors remember how our favorite parts were the Aelin Galathynius style "plot twists". So we got not one, but two different locations rife with civil war! Don't worry about our interchangeable hot white teens, though! They're hot and white, so no duh, they all make it to the end without so much as a scratch.
🙃🙃🙃
So yeah. Not even AIDAN and his repetitive philosophical ramblings could save this book. It had the beginnings of themes, the barest hint of believability, but it chose needless make out scenes and sanctimonious platitudes instead. It forgot that stakes required deaths not just for shock value, that too many of the exact same situation happening in the same book (and series, for that matter) ruins the potential for intrigue, and that no one thinks misogynistic locker room conversations about sexscapades make characters likeable. "The Duke" was dumb and spoke in the third person without question. Why did they think that was endearing and not straight up silly?
This was a waste of paper. And a waste of my time. Faith out.
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