Endings are always difficult to execute, and even more so when you are trying to please readers all over the world. With TRUEL1F3, Jay Kristoff brings us the ending of his LIFEL1K3 trilogy and he almost nails the landing.
Picking up immediately after the explosive cliffhanger of DEV1AT3, we are thrown back into Yousay and dragged through the aftermath. Lemon Fresh has been taken by BioMaas, Eve captured by Daedalus Technologies alongside Gabriel, while Cricket and Ezekiel are about two seconds from a nuclear explosion. With the corporate warfare between Daedalus Technologies and BioMaas escalating to all-out battles, our heroes are caught in the crossfire and things do not look good.
Each entry in Kristoff’s LIFEL1K3 trilogy has been a wild, reckless ride through destruction, deserts, and dystopia. While TRUEL1F3 shares this with its predecessors, it also brings in more of the corporate warfare that has been brewing in the background throughout the series. While it is good to see payoff from the corporate side of the previous stories, it left TRUEL1F3 feeling a little less focused on the emotional growth of our core group of characters. That being said, I found the worldbuilding to be spectacular, most specifically when it came to the corporate cities of CityHive and Megopolis. Kristoff certainly has a way with words and he brings his own brand of weird to this one. With such a wild world, some authors could weigh down the reader with clunky detailing, but Kristoff’s hand is deft and light. Immersing yourself in this world is simple, if not a little bit dangerous.
There are three missteps in TRUEL1F3, one of which I can discuss in detail, the other two I will have to be vague for spoiler reasons. So let’s start with the details: there are too many POVs for the story being told. While there were quite a few POVs in the first two books, the characters were more so within each other’s orbits and the strings of the stories were easier to maintain hold of. But in TRUEL1F3, we are bounced between POVs. Sometimes this is donee numerous times in a single chapter and at an alarming rate so because of this, the emotional investment in the characters is difficult to make.
The other two missteps will probably boil down to personal preference, but they still stood out enough to critiqued. The first is the development of Lemon Fresh’s story line in TRUEL1F3. Her importance is boiled down to a reproductive issue and that just really did not sit well with me. Lemon Fresh started this journey as a presumed sidekick, but proved herself to be a force not messed with. And while she is still a fighter with a heart of gold, Kristoff let her down in the end.
And, in the most unspoilery way I can describe it, the ending felt too easy. Sure, a lot happened to get us there, but the ending felt hollow and a little bit unsatisfying. It wasn’t a bad ending by any means, it just lacked the emotional stakes some readers will be looking for, especially considering this is a Kristoff novel.
At the end of the day, TRUEL1F3 is a good read, even if it’s not the most satisfying ending to a trilogy. I will never deny Kristoff’s way with worldbuilding, but where he tends to shine is the emotional impact of his character’s stories. In that aspect, he did not hit the mark with TRUEL1F3. But if you are looking for a wild, fever dream-esque story, set in the nuclear wasteland of the west coast of the United States, then TRUEL1F3 and the rest of the LIFEL1K3 trilogy are for you.
TRUEL1F3 is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
From the bestselling co-author of the Illuminae Files comes the thrilling finale in the LIFEL1K3 trilogy–hailed by Marie Lu as “a breathless, action-packed exploration of what humanity really means.”
Best friends have become enemies. Lovers have become strangers. And deciding whose side you’re on could be the difference between life and death. For Eve and Lemon, discovering the truth about themselves–and each other–was too much for their friendship to take. But with the country on the brink of a new world war–this time between the BioMaas swarm at CityHive and Daedalus’s army at Megopolis, loyalties will be pushed to the brink, unlikely alliances will form and with them, betrayals. But the threat doesn’t stop there, because the lifelikes are determined to access the program that will set every robot free, a task requiring both Eve and Ana, the girl she was created to replace. In the end, violent clashes and heartbreaking choices reveal the true heroes . . . and they may not be who you think they are.
