I should preface this by saying that I’m an absolute nerd for Jay Kristoff’s books so that means this was one of my most anticipated reads of 2020 and it...kinda let me down? I know, you see the 4 star rating and go ‘Whu?!’ but for me this wasn’t Jay’s greatest work.

As the third and final book in the LIFEL1K3 series, I expected this book to be JAM PACKED with action, explosions, twists, turns, and general Jay fuckery, which it was, but at the same time it just felt like too much to me. We had multiple POV’s, which I could have done without, and when the action hit, IT HIT! Over...and over....and over...and over, to the point that it felt very redundant and just boring after awhile. I get that our crew had to fight two major corps before even getting to the lifelikes but good god, it just felt like a lot.

Character wise we had a LOT of characters, which, thinking back on the first book, I wasn’t really expecting there to be this many in the final book. I loved all of them (except Preacher because screw him and Eve because screw her too) but I really feel like Lemon Fresh shined the most. In the first book, she’s the silly sidekick with a secret. In the second we get more of her backstory and she comes more to the forefront of this story. In this book, she just took the spotlight and SHONE in my opinion. If there’s one thing that Jay can do, it’s write a kickass female character.

If there’s one thing Jay can also do, it’s write a really hateful villain and that’s Preacher. To be honest, I shouldn’t be surprised that he lasted as long as he did because hello, it’s Jay Kristoff, but good god, was it just a tad bit annoying to see him keep popping up! I didn’t loathe him as I’ve loathed other Kristoff villains but he was just like an itch that wouldn’t go away! The other villains (hello, Jay again) didn’t feel as fleshed out as this guy. Gabriel was just wanting revenge for killing his love, and the other two leaders of the corps just, surprise surprise, wanted to take over the world. Nothing overtly original but again, twisted enough by Jay’s evil mind to really make you hate them.
Storywise, again, Lemon Fresh had the most growth and the best storyline out of the whole bunch. I think Jay may have gotten sidetracked between the first book and this one by how loud Lem’s voice was because Eve, our original protagonist, just seemed kind of shoved to the wayside when it came to story arc. By this book, I honestly didn’t care about her because she just became annoying and triffling because wah, people lied to me! She would not let go of the fact that Lem hid her deviate-ness (out of fear of persecution and death, mind you) and so all of humanity should suffer! Give me a break! Even the ending couldn’t save Eve’s character for me because I just...didn’t care anymore.

Speaking of endings, this is not Jay’s best work. I hate to say it because I absolutely worship his work and think he’s a brilliful writer but considering how long it took to get to the climax, it just happened...and very quickly. I kept expecting the big fight at the end to take a good chunk of time and it didn’t, and I was very unsatisfied. I felt as if the showdown with Gabriel was rushed and not done as well as it could have been. It felt like an afterthought, tbh.

All in all, I love the trilogy. I think Jay is a mastermind at coming up with his own worlds and vernacular for his worlds. He writes truly engaging characters and this story is definitely a great way to showcase that. It’s not his best work but I enjoyed it for what it was and will definitely recommend this trilogy to anyone looking for original YA Sci-Fi.

Review to be posted via Goodreads and my blog on June 16th, 2020!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

I was ecstatic when I was approved for this book. I love this series! I'm sad it is over but it ended well.

Lemon Fresh will always be my favorite character. She is awesome. Her sarcastic personality made this entire series. I've laughed outloud more times than I can count! Her and her new friends from the Missle Silo are my new favorite.

I didnt really care for Eve in this book. She pissed me off a couple of times, but I did like how her story ended. I know she was lost after book 1 but man, there were times I didn't even want to read her chapters.

Overall, this book is 4 stars and I enjoyed this entire series.

I really love the premise of this book. Machine versus Nature is definitely cool to read about it. Both BioMass and Daedalus go to extremes in their view which is interesting to read about. It almost seems like something that could happen in the future—far future anyways, and of course not as “fantasy type”. I also loved Lemon Fresh’s character. I could never really think of her as 15 though, but I enjoyed her snark and positivity. Cricket was also a favorite of mine in this book. His character really develops over the series. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for basically any other character. I feel like they were flat with no growth. Everyone was about revenge/evil. Even the ending didn’t truly satisfy me. Overall, I enjoyed the series.

If you're a fan of Jay Kristoff's work, going into the final book in a series is always a bit terrifying, because you just know things are about to get crazy. TRUEL1F3 is no exception, and it was action-packed and full of the craziness you've come to expect not just from this series in particular, but with anything by this author.

It's certainly an explosive ending to this series.

That being said, I feel like TRUEL1F3 is the weakest link in the trilogy. There are so many different things going on, so many threads and POV's to follow, and it's pedal to the metal from the get go and it feels like you lose a little bit of the impact. I didn't get very much time to digest what was going on, and I had a disconnect to what some of my favorite characters of his (hello Miss Fresh, I adore you) were experiencing and going through. Most of all, the 'redemption' of a certain character fell completely flat for me. They lived with seemingly no repercussions, when so many others didn't? It really loses me on the finale.

I may not have enjoyed this one as much as LIFEL1K3 or DEV1AT3, but judging the series on a whole? I'll still follow you anywhere Mister Kristoff.

Thank you to Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for review.

Dropped stars for that garbage half paragraph “redemption” because there’s no way a character deserved anything but destruction at the end of this.

“TrueLife” gives us the thrilling conclusion to this series as the last remaining children look to open the door and remake the world in their image but not with resistance from our motley crew of freaks and bots looking to prove that humanity should be saved.

This book was so good up until it’s last breath when tying up loose ends felt more like a harsh slap to the face.

The entirety of this series and more importantly this book gave the characters so many chances to re-evaluate what they were doing and offered choices and yes I get the struggle but when you have some of the repeatedly beating the shit out of those they have decided they no longer care about and they wear out fourth, fifth and sixth chances to do what’s right I don’t have any sympathy for them nor do I believe they deserved the ending they received, history or not all of these characters have been battered and bruised and to just shrug it off with a crown on their head is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read.

Again if you’re going to play up redemption give it to us in beats give me that struggle of loyalty and betrayal and let me see it play out in their hesitations or their willingness to follow but for the love of god don’t give me a single line and expect me to feel anything but anger and frustration to the point that I never wish to think of this series again.

Wow what a way to burn a series with a book that would have easily been a 5 star read if not for those last few pages.

**special thanks to the publishers and netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for a fair and honest review**

Spank my spankables
I can't believe this is over. What a KILLER ending!
Writing this review is going to be so hard, so that I don't spoil anything from the first two books, or this masterpiece, but, ugh, I just can't handle how much I loved this. The plot flowed nicely, I felt the struggle the characters were going through, I laughed, I cried all kinds of tears, and read the last page like 10 times. I do wish the last chapter had some more to it, or maybe an epilogue, but I'm nit picking. Well done, Mister Kristoff, well done.

Wow, I can’t believe this wonderful series has come to a conclusion! I immensely enjoyed Jay Kristoff’s cast of characters and found his unique writing style to be very engaging. At times it felt like he had created an entirely new language with the character’s frequent and plentiful use of slang. That said, there was quite a bit of swearing and several references to sex, which younger readers might find a bit off putting. I personally wasn’t bothered by it and was excited to see how the story unfolded. Ezekiel was by far my favorite character, and I didn’t mind Diesel and Grimm either. Lemon, on the other hand, became somewhat annoying and Cricket was definitely too overbearing. I didn’t love either of them, but they still looked like angels next to Eve, who was a remorseless mass murderer. Even so, I was satisfied with the positions everyone was in at the end of the book and thought it wrapped up nicely. I would definitely recommend this book to those who have read the rest of the series and commend the author on his visual and masterful story telling. This grand finale won’t disappoint!

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley, opinions are my own.

This was a very satisfying conclusion to the series. Throughout, I very much appreciated the different POVs and this installment didn't disappoint. Although I was sad at some of the outcomes, I felt that Kristoff was pretty "realistic" as to the resolution of the story arcs and there weren't many huge switches in character personality which would have come off as contrived. Kristoff continues to impress me with his visions and world-building, being able to create compelling futuristic situations that seem all too plausible. His dialogue is also incredibly rich and "new" which helps to immerse the reader into his worlds. This series will stay with me and bounce around for a while in a good way....

First rule of the Scrap
Stronger together.
Together forever.

Well, that was a rollercoaster ride of emotions. It’s been a while since I’ve finished a book in a matter of hours but I simply had to know how this story ended.

Fast-paced, action-packed. Filled with tests of loyalty, friendship, and love. You're constantly wondering what this world will throw at you next.

This was a book that made me consider a lot of things. What it means to be human. How hard it is to fight for a better future for everyone when it would far easier to just accept things as they are, to only look out for yourself.

The ending was realistic. The world was not wholly fixed, everything was not all roses and happy endings. But it was hopeful. As if, no matter how far we fall it is never too late to get back up and try again.

TRUEL1F3 was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it did not disappoint! After the heart stopping cliff hanger in DEV1AT3, I anxiously waited an entire year to feel closure and I truly felt we got it. There are some things I wish that were expanded on but it left it in a way that if he ever wanted to write more, there would be meat left for that to happen. As far as I know this is a trilogy only, though!

I loved the multiple points of view, I loved Lemon Fresh and her character ARC. Honestly when I started LIFEL1K3 I thought Eve would be the star but Lemon emerged from the scrap and stole my heart. I don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil anything! Once the series is out and people have had time to read it, I will expand more on my thoughts about this book and the characters. The love, the betrayals, the romance… I loved (and hated LOL) it all!

Just know that this book was an excellent conclusion to the series. It had action, adventure, so much laughter, heart warming moments… it does have a few triggering moments so if you are sensitive to some triggers please let me know and I can tell you so you can prepare. They aren’t graphic but it does add a layer of sensitivity to the issue.

Just like DEV1AT3 I have a hard time conceptualizing the time frame in which all of this takes place.. a matter of days.. a matter of weeks. It’s so hard for me to imagine Eve and her story ARC coming full circle in this time but again, it ramped up the intensity!

True Cert, this book was just what I needed to get out of my slump! I enjoyed seeing the direction the characters went! Jay Kristoff is a forever favorite author of mine.

My Rating: 4.5 Stars

I’ll be honest, when this beautiful ARC showed up on my kindle, I was more than a little hesitant to read it. After the way DEV1AT3 ended, I was genuinely terrified of this final book in a series I adore. We all know that Jay Kristoff is more than a tiny bit evil (see: Godsgrave), so I was worried about the path this series would take. After the events of book two, I didn’t see how Kristoff could wrap up the series without making me sob my damn eyes out.

I am happy to report, that I was able to finish TRUEL1F3 with minimal tears and more than a little laughter. This book was intense as hell and kept butterflies in my stomach from page one on. Somehow, with everything happening, Kristoff managed to tie up all of the loose ends of the series while making what I consider to be a pretty poignant statement about global warming and the importance of environmental protection.

I don’t want to spoil the book (writing reviews for book three in a series is SO HARD) so I won’t say much else. The only small thing that bothered me was the ending. The climax of the book was so intense that I was a touch let down by the overall easy wrap up. I honestly could’ve done with another chunk of epilogue, but maybe that’s me being greedy. I also hated that a character I didn’t love got a happy ending, while a character that I adored did not. That feels like more of a matter of personal preference than anything though.

If you read my reviews of this series, you’ll know that LIFEL1K3 was a little rough for me as I had a difficult time connecting with Eve. For me, the series didn’t really hit it’s stride until book two when it became clear that LemonFresh would be the main focus of the books. Her values and overall focus on friendship made her an easy to love character, while Eve remained someone I didn’t really like even through the end of TRUEL1F3.

bookshelves: arc

This conclusion to the Lifelike series is mostly satisfying. I certainly enjoyed the ride and recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the earlier installments.

The party fragmentation we saw in book 2 continues, and tensions escalate between Daedalus and BioMaas with our party trapped in the middle. No new major characters are introduced, which is good-- I think the character pool expanded overmuch in book 2, though it had the benefit of giving Eve some off-screen time to play around with being evil and it let the other characters forge relationships with each other. I think this is one of Kristoff's major skills as a writer. Not only does he create endearing and complex characters beyond the initial protagonist (with the possible exception of Cockney-slang talking Grimm, whose mannerisms struck me as unnecessary and distracting), he has those characters have connections and feuds with one another that don't involve that initial protagonist. It makes the cast into a true intertwined network instead of Eve being the hub of the wheel.

The downside to this large character pool is that we don't get to spend enough time with everyone. I particularly felt this with Eve. She has some transformative character moments that drive her on new paths, but we see little of it. I'm still nursing a grudge about Eve taking up with Gabriel and the others still not feeling fully justified, and it makes the climax of this book much less meaningful despite more screentime with Eve.

Despite the otherwise satisfying ending: there's one loose end that didn't seem to get resolution: Grace.