Reviews with content warning for Pandemic/Epidemic - Illuminae

Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

29 reviews

tealattes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? Yes

4.75

Space battles meet airborne diseases and a loopy AI in this action packed opening to the Illuminae Files series. 10/10 recommend for fans of laid back sci fi who wouldn’t mind a little bit of interstitial romance and girl-against-all-odds type things. (check TWS)

With the unconventional formatting there was so much depth and detail. It is told in the form of a dossier compiling all relevant documents relating to the events after they have already completed, so it’s a mystery for the reader to understand how the world got to that point. Some of these documents include transcripts of interviews, online chatting, emails, scientific reports, military after action reports, public service announcements, description of the security camera footage, personal entries, even the AI’s core data- it’s evident that there are many characters and perspectives supplied. It was a fast paced read that still didn’t sacrifice plot structure and development. It’s slightly confusing at times, but that makes it all the more fun to be able to piece together the documents.

The authors executed the science portions well- they said they had an astrophysicist, white hat hacker and medical professional look over their drafts to make the book as accurate as possible!

However it’s not too dense either and provides humorous bits and even (what I would say) philosophical and emotional themes. With the context of life or death situations, the story tackles the definition of humanity as the authorities, civilians, and even the AI make decisions weighing logic and morality.

Perhaps bravery is simply the face humanity wraps around its collective madness.

It is astonishing to watch the differing ways the madness shapes them. Fractures them into splinters and rearranges what remains.

It moves quickly and never is there a dull moment. I could picture the story the whole way through as if it were a movie. And the ending!!! THE ENDING!!! This book does not suffer from book one syndrome, it’s a beautiful story on its own AND it is such a promising setup for Gemina.

(Yeah, so it has some teenage romance. It’s part of the description and I can’t criticize it for executing what it promised to. It appeared rushed but under their circumstances, I just had to root for them, and it wasn’t bad. But what I did have an issue with was the frequency of swearing. It was all censored in black but context still exists and I couldn’t prevent reading it in my head. While sometimes I can get why a character would say them, other times they were overused and called too much attention to themselves. I’d prefer to dial it back so I could better focus on the actual content.)

My largest critique is that there would often be very poetic and emotional scenes ruined by sarcasm and humor. Basically, poor timing; the switches in format and characters caused a bit of mood whiplash. It would be a like a blinking light reminder that this is a YA book when without it, nothing else would indicate that.

Content Warnings

bebidocrimes's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

If the page count wasn't so intimidating, I could see this having had a craze in my school. Or maybe I think spaceships are cooler than others do. The unique formatting feels like a cute gimmick until occasionally It's Not and it's very very intentional and really lends more impact to the story. My small gripes are generally just because it's YA and can be forgiven.

What omnipotent AI is gonna fall in love(?) with a random 17-year-old just because she can code? Who's still using emoticons when texting your savior while you hide from a pack of crazed murderers? Why are the characters putting more emphasis on losing the (ex-)boyfriend and not HER LITERAL ACTUAL MOM??

Content Warnings

luna_noble's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

4.25

Content Warnings

moonwitch's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

Really loved the format of this book. Multi-pov space heist vibes with a cute romance. The way the book is written makes it very interesting - sometimes it's transcripts of video or conversations, other times it's making you turn the book upside down. A lot of fun & can't wait to get into the rest of the series.

Content Warnings

peachani's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.75

Content Warnings

lawbooks600's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings