In the first book of the trilogy we get introduced to Binti – a girl from an ethnic human group called the Himba. She is the first Himba to get accepted to Oomza Uni, which is the best university in the galaxy. Despite the fact that Binti’s parents and friends are against her attending Oomza Uni, she sneaks out at night to pursue her dreams. Binti boards on a ship called “The Third Fish” to get to Oomza Uni. Even though the Khoush people have always looked down on the Himba, Binti quickly finds common ground with a lot of her future classmates and becomes close with them.
However, the ship gets attacked by the Meduse and everyone except for Binti and the pilot gets killed. In fact, the Meduse and the Khoush have been at war for many years. Things escalated after the Khoush put the Meduse chief’s stinger in their museum at Oomza Uni. The Meduse

decided to take revenge, hence the attack on “Third Fish”. Binti survives the attack because of her edan – an ancient artifact that she found a long time ago, which will be explored in the second book.
Binti is a Master-Harmonizer, which means that she was born with the gift of making peace. Furthermore, the edan allows Binti to communicate with the Meduse and she decides to reconcile the Khoush with the Meduse. Moreover, Binti gets stung by Okwu - one of the Meduse, which lets her communicate with them without her edan. She later finds out that the sting had even more consequences. Binti has now become part of the Meduse and she can feel Okwu’s emotions, while being far away. She succeeds at making peace between the Khoush and the Meduse and even attends Oomza Uni with her newfound friend Okwu.

While the first book was action-centered, the second book of the trilogy goes deep into exploring Binti’s internal struggles, as well as her relationships with other characters. She likes attending Oomza Uni and spending time with like-minded people, who are also focused on their studies.
However, Binti hasn’t felt like herself since getting stung by Okwu on the ship and losing her friends in such a short period of time. She has been been dealing with anger issues, which frequently interrupt her “treeing” - mathematical meditation. She regularly attends therapy sessions to work on her panic attacks but decides that she needs to go back home to feel like herself again. Binti thinks that the problem is that she still hasn’t gone on pilgrimage, which is a traditional Himba ritual

that all girls must complete to “become women”. She decides to bring Okwu with her to show that the Khoush and the Meduse are officially at peace. However, Okwu doesn’t carry out his role as the peace sign and actually becomes the opposite later in the book.
At home Binti meets her family and her childhood friend Dele, all of whom have still not accepted her and are mad at her for leaving. The night before she was supposed to go on pilgrimage , Binti sees the Night Masquerade, which is a cultural legend of the Himba that is only shown to truly worthy men.
After that the Enyi Zinariya show up to take Binti to the desert with them and Binti leaves her family’s home once again. The Enyi Zinariya is one of the ethnic groups on Earth, who are looked down upon by The Himba. Binti knew that her grandmother was part of The Enyi Zinariya, however, her farther has always been ashamed of being related to “the desert people”, which is why Binti has viewed them her whole life as uncivilised savages. However, after spending some time with the Enyi Zinariya Binti finds out that they have the ability to communicate with each other, while being miles away, which is something they got from an ancient species called the Zinariya and finally learns the true nature of her edan.
The Enyi Zinariya offer Binti to join them and she agrees and even becomes close with Mwinye, who is also a master harmoniser. After the ritual, Binti becomes a hybrid of the Himba, the Meduse and the Enyi Zinariya. While Binti is away with the Enyi Zinariya she feels that Okwu is in danger, moreover, no-one can reach her family. She returns to a burned house and finds Okwu, who is injured and convinced that her family is dead.

In the third and last part of the trilogy Binti becomes the peace maker between the Khoush and the Meduse once again. However, this time the Himba tribe is also involved in the war. The last book also explores the romantic relationship between Mwinye and Binti. They have a lot in common, both being harmonisers, however, they use different methods and it is interesting how they complement one another.
Binti is able to call upon the old Himba culture, as a master harmoniser, to make peace. However, the elders of the Himba tribe betray Binti and don’t show up to the peace settlement. Dele, Binti’s childhood friend, supports her and even dresses up as The Night Masquerade to encourage Binti. She later learns that The Night Masquerade is not something mystical and that it actually consists of human members, who

decide who gets to see them. Even though Binti succeeds at calling upon the old Himba culture, the battle starts once again and both her and Okwu get shot. Binti dies.
It turned out that her family was still alive because of a technology called the Undying tree, which managed to hide them. They get out of the burned house only to find their daughter killed. Mwinye remembers that Binti talked about the rings of Saturn and how she has only ever felt safe in space. Okwu and Mwinye go to find the Third fish to take Binti to the rings of Saturn. They find Third fish with her new baby - New fish, which takes them and Binti’s body to Saturn.
Binti resurrects, while being in New fish’s body, which makes them connected, moreover, they can’t be more than 5 miles away from each other from now on. Binti now has to deal with 4 different identities, being part of the Himba, the Meduse, the Enyi Zinariya and the New Fish all at once. While being at Saturn, she speaks to the aliens, that have summoned her and finds out that they only wanted to know what she thought of Oomza University. She said that she enjoyed it very much and the trilogy ends with Binti, Mwinye and their other friends going around Oomza Uni.