Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - Illuminae

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Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

34 reviews

lawbooks600's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Representation: Asian character
Score: Eight out of ten.

I enjoyed The Aurora Cycle from these authors so I decided to give The Illuminae Files a shot to see if it lives up to my expectations. I picked up the first instalment in the series, Illuminae, and glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing. When I closed the final page, it was enjoyable, and made me hope that the next part of the series, Gemina, will be of the same quality, if not better.

It starts with the first people I see, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, living on a planet which is a company colony until another company destroyed it, killing everyone on there save for a few thousand who hopped on three spaceships to escape from the apocalypse. However, the situation only worsens as an epidemic plagues the ship, its AI, AIDAN, goes rogue, and BeiTech spaceships are still on the hunt to eviscerate the remaining citizens of the colony planet. I don't even know where to begin with Illuminae. But I'll try. For a book whose page count is one page shy of 600, it's fast-paced and enthralling, which ties in to the writing style. Illuminae isn't a book. It's more of a collection of files, including surveillance footage, images of spaceships, Wikipedia-like pages, artwork and DMs among other miscellanies. I liked the realistic teenage dialogue, but not the characters themselves. Finally! Teenagers in Illuminae don't speak like philosophers. They're more accurate to real-life youth. AIDAN developed his character as he turns from a ship commander to a human-like being, which isn't that original but I'll let the authors get away with it, which made me like him the most. I couldn't relate to Kady and Ezra, though. The composition kept making me turn its pages because I never know what I would get on the next page since it's not a predictable wall of text. It could be anything. The conclusion is nail-biting as Kady and AIDAN are the only survivors of the plague, and take down a BeiTech ship, the Lincoln, with the Alexander before escaping to a faraway space station named the Heimdall. There's also a cliffhanger. Wow.

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alphabet_soup_books's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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clpavain's review against another edition

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dark tense

This is the scariest book I've ever read

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tabea1409's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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a_cera_t0ps's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It was easy to get lost in this book. It was one of the most well researched space sci-fi pieces of media, especially in the young adult genre.

While the plot and external circumstances had very strong involvement, (i.e. BeiTech/the Lincoln) the story seemed very focused on the internal fallout of basically every named character (as much as possible without overcrowding the book).

There is a romance, technically two, but in neither does it feel forced. Between Kady and Ezra, it is a natural development; they had just broken up when the attack had happened, it was not due to a lack of feelings on either side. Throughout the book, they work together to survive. They put petty fights behind them. It's a very nontoxic relationship, and it was really engaging to read.
The other romance is probably mad spoilers, but is also well written. It intentionally goes against the grain of the natural character capabilities, but that is a heavy part of the plot: the breakage of what once was, especially when it comes to the Alexander's personel, body, and mind.

The book was very quippy, and was written from individual perspectives, even when most of it is an outside observer. The writer style and format was all extremely creative, and in some ways, it needed to be. It is interesting to have such a clear example of just how different a movie is from that which a book is capable of.
This book was long, but it went fast, both due to the intriguing use of certain pages and to just pure engagement.

The main plot is Violent with a capital v. It is a rescue mission, a mystery, a zombie apocalypse, and a war. The romance is integral to the character's actions, but as actively involved as it is, they never undermine the important stuff. This is a character driven story: the importance and diversity of humanity (the moral stuff, not a group of people) is heavily explored, especially in the fourth quarter of the book.

This is a crazy good book, with too many twists and turns for me to cover all of it, so just read it for yourself.

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kathrynleereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

I will never have enough good things to say about Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. The Illuminae Files trilogy blows my mind every time I read it.

First of all, the format is ingenious. An entire story told just through different files and documents? Count me in.

Second, the complexity required by those files. If you take the time to actually delve into the pages (even the ones that don't look too important to the story, like the list of confirmed deceased), you'll be blown away by what you find.

Third, any author who has the ability to make me care about a mass-murdering robot will forever have my loyalty.

If you haven't read the Illuminae Files, I recommend that you drop everything and start now. Even if sci-fi isn't necessarily your cup of tea, I promise you won't be disappointed.

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