Book Review: "Until the Last of Me" by Sylvain Neuvel

*Spoilers warning!*

4/5 stars

Until the Last of Me was a very unpredictable read, even if the historical background in which this story is playing out has already been established. 

We pick up where first book in the series, A History of What Comes Next left off. Mia and her daughter, Lola, are still on the run from the Trackers, their historical enemies, but of course they keep busy. They've helped send astronauts to the moon, and are now helping with the Voyager 1 & 2 probe projects at NASA. 

Along the way, Mia hears from an old friend of her mother's, Xuesen, a pivotal figure in the Chinese space scene, and discovers that her mother was hiding things from her. For years, she had been pursuing a lead about their Kibsu heritage, curious to recover some knowledge of who their ancestors were, while admonishing Mia for the same curiosity. 

You see, the mission to take humanity into the stars always takes precedence, according to their rules, passed on for 100 generations. At best, indulging that ancestral curiosity is a vanity project, and at worst, provides a major distraction in a deadly race to escape the Trackers (ideally, eventually, off-planet). 

These threads mesh together more naturally than one might imagine. 

While humanity is wrestling with the conflicts of the era, where after the initial moon landing, human space-travel has taken a back seat, and while Mia and Lola are doing their best to trace their roots, Voyager 1 & 2 are visiting the outer planets. 

The perspectives of the space probes are charmingly anthropomorphized, struggling like their human counterparts on Earth against forces much larger than themselves (in space, that being gravity, distance, and the debris of the solar system). I suspect that made it easier for general readers to connect with machines (perhaps like people getting to name our Mars rovers), but I think that this perspective hints at the future humanity could have in the stars and serves to highlight how our machines are an extension of humanity's curiosity and drive to explore.

But, before I keep going on that tangent, let's return to the story! 

For generations, the Kibsu have been on the run, but Lola is the one that ultimately makes a gambit to stop running. I think the unexpected death of her mother solidified this choice to make a stand against the Trackers. 

Is Lola's gambit worth it, or will it doom the Kibsu, and humanity's future in the stars? Read to find out! 

I can't wait for the final volume of the trilogy, which is titled For the First Time, Again, to see where the author is going to take us. Let's just say the ending of Until the Last of Me sets up an intriguing evolution of the story so far. 

Happy reading!

--BookOwl