The storm of echoes

Gr 9 Up--Arks are falling as the world collapses, entire villages disappearing into the void. To try and stop the destruction, Ophelia and Thorn must discover the secrets of Babel's Deviations Observatory. But what should have been a straightforward mission tangles Ophelia up in the power of God, the nature of the Other, and a plan centuries in the making. A series founded on political intrigue and romance has made a hard pivot into the nature of identity, agency, and sacrifice as these characters fight for their happy ending. VERDICT This award-winning French fantasy series went viral on TikTok during the pandemic and its American readers finally have the epic conclusion. Readers might have to sit with this finale to appreciate its metaphysical possibilities.

With the world barreling to its end, Ophelia finds herself back at the beginning. What's left of the world is falling apart--literally. Unexplained sinkholes and landslides are eating away at the arks at random, with whole communities falling into the void, and all of it might be Ophelia's fault. After their investigation at the Memorial, Ophelia and Thorn believe the key to undoing what God and the Other set in motion centuries ago and to halting the current destruction lies in Babel's Deviations Observatory. With a supposedly straightforward mission of studying and correcting aberrations, the observatory's secrets are nonetheless impenetrable even to Babel's highest authorities, meaning they must be accessed from the inside. But when Ophelia is accepted into the Alternative Program and discovers the observatory's interest in the possibility of phenomena called echoes to re-create God's power, she finds that disrupting the ripple effect of God's choices and repairing the world may require destroying herself. Metaphysical mystery, compellingly in the wings for most of the series, takes center stage in the quartet's final installment. Political intrigue gracefully pivots to fraught introspection and identity turmoil, and the inertia of over 500 pages is easily overcome by the continued thrill of treachery and momentum of answers finally revealed. The focus on certain aspects of (meta)physical disability among the observatory's participants yields some necessary nuance, but overall, disabled and non-White representation remain a series miss. A cataclysmic conclusion. (Fantasy. 14-adult) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.