Only Human
by Sylvain Neuvel

book three in the Themis Files

Genre: Sci-Fi
Author: Sylvain Neuvel
Published: May 2018
Publisher: Michael Joseph
Pages: 353 [paperback]

First thoughts

A great conclusion to this trilogy! I was so interested to see where book three was going to go after the events of book two. Things finish off in quite a final way, so this storyline was a total surprise! As always, the audiobook was an amazing way to read this with a full cast of narrators making things interesting.

*** spoilers for previous two books beyond this point ***

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Only Human

This story picks up after the events of book two where we see a tragic amount of people killed by a gas released by the aliens. I was shocked when our main narrator is struck off and wondering where on earth the story could go from here.

Turns out anywhere but Earth was the answer! The book flips between two timelines between Vincent, Eva and Rose arriving on an alien world after Themis is brought back to her home planet, and ten years later when they escape back to Earth (not a spoiler, don’t worry). This book is filled with chaos and so much angst, which makes it perfectly delightful to read.

Why it was great!

It’s really interesting how Neuvel has imagined humanity’s response to an alien invasion and overall I think he’s done a great job—it’s super believable. I find the structure of these books to make for real page-turners with the reports often ending on cliff-hangers. The three main characters of this story are in near-constant danger and battling against great odds to be safe again.

There’s plenty of fighting, high-stakes action and family arguments in this final installment to the Themis Files to keep you hooked. My initial concerns that there wasn’t space for a third book in this series have been allayed, because I think this ties off the whole saga really nicely—and in quite an unexpected way too!

Summary

I don’t think I really need to encourage you to read this series if you’ve made it this far down. But all I can say is that I’m really looking forward to what Neuvel writes next (A History of What Comes Next) because if it’s anything like this book, I’m SO there!

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