Sylvain Neuvel showed in his Themis Files trilogy his ability to deliver a coherent trilogy in which each book takes a different approach to the subject matter. He has done something similar with his Take Them to the Stars trilogy – an overarching narrative, some similar story beats but each book came at the story from a new angle. Given the ending of the second book – Until the Last of Me – a new approach was almost inevitable. But that book itself contained some of the seeds for the narrative in the final book of this series – For the First Time Again. As always, being the final book of a trilogy this review will contain minor spoilers for the first two books.
At the end of Until the Last of Me is seemed that the line of the Kibsu, an alien race hiding on Earth for millennia, had come to and end. That line was passed from mother to daughter but while there was a ten year old girl still living she had no one to teach her her purpose. That girl, Aster, is the centre of this narrative which focusses on how she comes into her heritage and tries to avert the potential damage done by the hunters who had pursued her ancestors. Aster has to do with while she is herself hunted by not only members of her original race who have come to earth but the US Military who have a scent of potential aliens.
As with the previous two books in this series, Neuvel locates the action very precisely in time – in this case the late 1990s and into the 2000s. His overarching vehicle for this is musical – each chapter heading throughout the series has been a song from the year in which the action is taking place. But he has also followed the development of the space industry from the recruitment of German rocket scientists in World War II in A History of What Comes Next, to the Voyager space probe program in Until the Last of Me. For the First Time Again is interested in the rise of private interests in the space race and the sending of a probe to Pluto (before it was declared not to be a planet). As with the other books, Neuvel has an extensive section at the back of the book exploring the real history of these events. Short interlude chapters in previous volumes looked at the history of Aster’s family line, this book goes back to the beginning and the arrival of both the Kibsu and those who would become their Hunters on Earth.
While the overall story lost a little focus in the second novel and the connection to the space industry was more tenuous Neuvel brings these aspects strongly back into focus in this final novel. He does this by allowing the reader to experience the gaining of knowledge through Aster and following her as she creates plans within plans. But also by requiring her to get involved in the development of new space probes in order for those plans to succeed.
For the First Time Again provides an enjoyable and triumphal conclusion to Neuvel’s Take Them to the Stars trilogy. He has now done giant robots and a aliens among us so it will be interesting to see what tropes he tackles next. What he does provide, Marvel-movie style, is what can only be described as a post-credits extra epilogue which, while delightful for those who have read all of this works, (unlike Marvel) does not provide any hints as to what that will be.

First of all, let's talk about the ending. I mean the last page after the acknowledgments. Did Sylvain Neuvel connect to the series together with just one line? It was genius. Okay now, let's go back to my reviewThe third book was so much different from the first book but it was amazing as well. For the first time, again we follow Aster and she has no idea she is Kibsu. It was fun to follow her journey and to my surprise, I really liked Samuel too. I liked Sylvain Nuevel's writing style. he gave every character their own unique voice. Which if you consider some of them are basically the same person it was fun to have their own characters. If you enjoyed Themis Files you should definitely give this series a chance. You won't regret it. I can't wait to read his next novel. Maybe we get to know what happened between Rose and Aster too.

I loved Sylvain's Sleeping Giants trilogy a lot, and this series is also not bad at all. I have read the first two a while ago and remember them not leaving a big impression, but still I enjoy this authors writing.

I enjoyed it on its own. I liked the characters, the story, I will say that this is probably my least favorite of the three, and I am glad it is the last one because I personally would not continue this series.

Thank you NetGalley for the Arc.

I don't know what I was expecting from the description but I am impressed with what I read. This was a very intriguing story of being helped in the most unexpected places. When discovering you are the last of your alien race.

This third book concludes Neuval’s Take Me to the Stars trilogy, and really can’t be read without reading the first two books, both of which I loved. This series centers around two alien races who have long lived undercover on Earth: the Kibsu who pass their traditions and secrets from mother to daughter, and the violent male father-son Trackers who seek to find and kill them.

In the mother-daughter line of Kibsu, 12-year-old Aster’s mom disappeared when she was young and Aster herself has no idea that she’s an alien. Until a blood test that has the U.S. military seeking to capture and study her. Samael, the last of the Trackers, steps in to help Aster out of guilt of killing her mom, and has to keep in check his baser violent instincts. Together on the run, they need to figure out how to recall an alien call for help triggered by Aster’s mom – and latch onto a crazy idea involving a space probe to Jupiter.

But what REALLY makes this book fantastic is Neuval’s clear, deep love of space exploration and her long appendix that engagingly shares details and stories about all the ships and probes sent out from Earth in the past couple decades. This part of the book is a must-read!

Thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

Sylvain Neuvel does it again! Does he veer miss? I don't think so. Very intelligent science-fiction novel that entertain as much as it makes us think!

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It's tough to talk about this book without giving spoilers for the prior two, but like everything Sylvain Neuvel writes, this was such an enjoyable science fiction book. Neuvel always makes the science feel really approachable, while also very clearly doing his research to get it right. (or as "right" as our current science allows for.)

I really enjoyed the continuation of this series, and the way it wrapped up was both so entertaining, and it paid proper tribute to everything that had happened in the 80 ish years that this series took place in.

My biggest complaint with all of these books is that I find it difficult to feel the emotional beats to their full breadth because we just don't get quite enough time with each character, but I did think that this book handled that better than the previous two.

One additional note, if you did not like the Themis Files, you probably won't like Take Them to the Stars. They have similar structures, although the Themis Files does use more multimedia from what I remember.

I am a huge fan of Neuvel's and will read anything he publishes. That being said, For the First Time, Again was not one of my favorites. I've spent a week or so since reading this trying to determine why. Ultimately I think the narrator didn't seem genuine. One of the things I've enjoyed about this series was having different narrators tell their side of similar stories; but here the dialogue and character development seemed stilted. Aster wasn't as believable as earlier incarnations of her had been. I think it's a good ending to the trilogy - I just wanted an *excellent* ending, and this didn't provide that for me. I do look forward to what's next, though!

Sylvain Neuvel has a very unique way of crafting a narrative. This book, which is intended to be the end of a series, was a satisfying conclusion with the potential to explore these characters and their stories more closely in the future if he chooses to.

I'm not going to lie, I was a bit skeptical of how we were going to 'take them to the stars' with a preteen protagonist who has no idea who she even is, but I was genuinely surprised at the route Neuvel took to get Aster to come into her own and work towards the Kibsu's mission objective.

I had a fun time with this series as a whole—it keeps you on your toes and takes you by surprise, and I truly love the way history was weaved into this.

Can't wait to read whatever Neuvel comes up with next!

Huge thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for the ARC!

Having loved Nuevel’s Sleeping Giants trilogy, I decided to give a go to his Take Them to the Stars series. I listened to the first two books by audiobook and couldn’t stop thinking about the Kibsu.

After finishing book 2, I realized that the final book hadn’t been released yet. So thank goodness for NetGalley and Tor Books and for the advance copy. I was able to pick right up where I left off.

Aster is just a young tween when she finds out she’s the last of the Kibsu, one hundred and two.

Unfortunately, the American government has discovered her existence along with the Tracker, so she uses her Kibsu skills to try to evade them all.

This was a really enjoyable series. I listened to the first two books on audiobook and can only imagine that the audio For the First Time, Again is just as brilliant.

Enjoyable, but not as good as the first in the series. A good choice for fans looking to finish the trilogy and a string purchase for libraries as well.

This series has been so great and this was a good conclusion to wrap it up. I love how the story takes real like events and twists/ weaves them into the story. I especially love how Neuvel talks about the real life events at the end of each book. This was a great story and did not end how I was expecting.

Well I have read other books by this author but NOT this series.

I enjoyed it on its own. I liked the characters, the story, the story even though I have no idea what it relates back to. But it did work on its own (for me) and I loved the playlist and the authors note, going bananas about Pluto was fantastic.

3.5 stars rounded up.

An excellent third entry in Neuvel's brilliant series. I love his writing style and plotting skills.

this was a great third entry in the take them to the stars series, it had what I was looking for from the previous two entries. Sylvain Neuvel has a great writing style and works so well in a scifi novel. I enjoyed every part of the story and Aster was a great main character. It had what I enjoyed about the genre and was invested in the world created.

"Anyway. We’re safe. Safe as can be, I guess. Sam thinks the giant people need to be close by to find us and Bruce Willis will look everywhere else before he gets to this place. Even if they caught up to us, it’s 360 degrees of escape route."