First, a continuation of my gripes concerning the novella trilogy format: it was annoying to read books 2 and 3 back to back. You have a conversation at the end of book 2, and then 30 something pages later (but skipping over to book three) the conversation must be rehashed into a distant memory to 'refresh' the reader about what happened in the last installment. It happened literally yesterday - there is no need for a flashback sequence here.

Now, since the story is finished I can comment on it a little more. I think that this book was like the 3rd Lord of the Rings movie, where the big battle of the 2nd film was finished off right at the start, then for the next three hours everyone went home. There was no need for any of that.

The science in this sci-fi was quite far into the fiction zone. Not in the sense that it was more space opera than anything else (sure, it was that too), but more-so most of the actual science was either pedestrian, miss-understood or incorrect/out of context/irrelevant. Equations like xx=fx: such a beautiful tapestry of an equation, since f is therefore equal to x where x is the set of all numbers if no additional constraints are given, simplifying to x = numbers. Wow. Or when Binti uses the 'equations for circles' which is actually a rebadged Pythagorean equation for triangles. Or when there's biology lessons like 'you are more microbes than human now'. Or when things are thrice contradicted in the same paragraph: When Binti is perceiving herself flying through space, she sees the nothingness around here, no fixed points, yet suddenly she starts falling. Then a sentence later realises it's space and that's great because there is no up or down, but then a sentence later is doing barrel rolls due to her innate understanding of down?

The writing, mostly, is repetitive and not overly imaginative. 'His hear was like a dust storm and filled with dust, like a dust storm'. Maybe mildly smirk-worthy once, but not continuously throughout.

The story: I don't know. I think I liked the first book as a stand alone, and the continuation was a flop. I could see what the author was attempting to do, but didn't quite make it there. The plot may have wended from side to side, but the outcome was uncomfortably obvious as soon as book 2 got moving. Nothing was surprising.
I wanted to read this trilogy to gleam an insight into an author not from my part of the world, not from my culture, yet we know we have a common footing in the fact we are lovers of sci-fi. Instead, I learnt that being insular and prejudice as a culture is a generally universal trait, that teenagers are the same selfish idiots all over the place & solidified a notion that I'll probably never attempt to read a novella trilogy again.