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4.27 AVERAGE
4.27 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Far out this book is AMAZING!!!!! I absolutely loved it!!! I want Gemina right now!! GIVE IT TO ME NOOOOOOOOOOW!!!!!!! It's so intense and amazing and, and WORTHY TO BE AT THE TOP OF MY BOOKSHELF!!!!!! Does anyone have a medical license cause it's so good I might die!!
This deserves the magical 49 Stars!!
This deserves the magical 49 Stars!!
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Characters – 8.5/10
Kady Grant is the type of protagonist who rolls her eyes while saving the galaxy and roasting your entire personality in a single instant message. She’s sharp, emotionally armoured, and ridiculously competent, and I liked her even when I didn’t quite like her. Ezra brings some unexpected sweetness and vulnerability to what initially looked like your standard jock-in-space, and their messy, text-message-fueled relationship had just enough bite to keep me emotionally invested. And then there’s AIDAN, our poetic murderbot overlord, who stole the show by being both terrifying and heartbreakingly sincere. That said, some of the side characters were a bit undercooked—tragic, yes, but often more symbol than person. Still, the emotional arcs landed, and I genuinely cared about who lived, who died, and who uploaded themselves into a warship’s corrupted mainframe.
Kady Grant is the type of protagonist who rolls her eyes while saving the galaxy and roasting your entire personality in a single instant message. She’s sharp, emotionally armoured, and ridiculously competent, and I liked her even when I didn’t quite like her. Ezra brings some unexpected sweetness and vulnerability to what initially looked like your standard jock-in-space, and their messy, text-message-fueled relationship had just enough bite to keep me emotionally invested. And then there’s AIDAN, our poetic murderbot overlord, who stole the show by being both terrifying and heartbreakingly sincere. That said, some of the side characters were a bit undercooked—tragic, yes, but often more symbol than person. Still, the emotional arcs landed, and I genuinely cared about who lived, who died, and who uploaded themselves into a warship’s corrupted mainframe.
Atmosphere / Setting – 9/10
This book drips with tension. The fragmented format doesn’t just convey the story—it is the setting. I could feel the walls closing in, the oxygen dwindling, the cold mechanical eye of AIDAN watching everything. The Alexander is a floating graveyard, the Hypatia is a fraying lifeline, and the Copernicus… well, that’s where your nightmares go to respawn. It’s all gorgeously rendered through email logs, ship schematics, chat transcripts, and surveillance footage. Even when the formatting got cutesy, the atmosphere rarely wavered. It’s cinematic without needing a camera.
This book drips with tension. The fragmented format doesn’t just convey the story—it is the setting. I could feel the walls closing in, the oxygen dwindling, the cold mechanical eye of AIDAN watching everything. The Alexander is a floating graveyard, the Hypatia is a fraying lifeline, and the Copernicus… well, that’s where your nightmares go to respawn. It’s all gorgeously rendered through email logs, ship schematics, chat transcripts, and surveillance footage. Even when the formatting got cutesy, the atmosphere rarely wavered. It’s cinematic without needing a camera.
Writing Style – 8/10
There’s a fine line between stylized and self-indulgent, and Illuminae tap-dances across it with neon-soaked glee. I admired the commitment to the dossier format, and when it clicked—AIDAN’s corrupted thought logs, the snappy IMs, the stark casualty reports—it sang. The prose doesn’t aim for beauty; it aims for impact, and it hits often enough to keep me impressed. But the slang-heavy dialogue and dramatic font gymnastics occasionally made me roll my eyes. It’s a high-wire act of tone: edgy, dramatic, a little emo, and surprisingly heartfelt. When it worked, I was all in. When it didn’t, I wanted to hand the book a cup of decaf and tell it to calm down.
There’s a fine line between stylized and self-indulgent, and Illuminae tap-dances across it with neon-soaked glee. I admired the commitment to the dossier format, and when it clicked—AIDAN’s corrupted thought logs, the snappy IMs, the stark casualty reports—it sang. The prose doesn’t aim for beauty; it aims for impact, and it hits often enough to keep me impressed. But the slang-heavy dialogue and dramatic font gymnastics occasionally made me roll my eyes. It’s a high-wire act of tone: edgy, dramatic, a little emo, and surprisingly heartfelt. When it worked, I was all in. When it didn’t, I wanted to hand the book a cup of decaf and tell it to calm down.
Plot – 8/10
This plot is a blender full of sci-fi tropes set to maximum puree: evil megacorp, plague ship, rogue AI, teenage genius with boundary issues. And yet, it all fits together with a shocking amount of narrative glue. There’s constant momentum, even when the story branches into multiple crises. I appreciated that it took risks—character deaths, false endings, deeply unsettling reveals—but a few beats still felt emotionally rushed or glossed over. It’s a lot of spectacle (and I mean a lot), and while it delivers, I didn’t always feel like it trusted the reader to sit with the quieter moments. Still, as a high-stakes sci-fi thriller? It absolutely delivers the goods.
This plot is a blender full of sci-fi tropes set to maximum puree: evil megacorp, plague ship, rogue AI, teenage genius with boundary issues. And yet, it all fits together with a shocking amount of narrative glue. There’s constant momentum, even when the story branches into multiple crises. I appreciated that it took risks—character deaths, false endings, deeply unsettling reveals—but a few beats still felt emotionally rushed or glossed over. It’s a lot of spectacle (and I mean a lot), and while it delivers, I didn’t always feel like it trusted the reader to sit with the quieter moments. Still, as a high-stakes sci-fi thriller? It absolutely delivers the goods.
Intrigue – 9.5/10
This book had its claws in me from page one and didn’t let go—not even during the overly stylized blackout pages or the moments when I was muttering “okay but how is this a functional military communication.” I needed to know what was going to happen. I stayed up too late. I skimmed ahead. I flipped back to double-check death dates. The mystery of AIDAN’s decisions, the growing dread aboard the Copernicus, the question of who would make it out—it had that rare, addictive quality where I forgot I was reading and just lived in the story. Intrigue is where this book shines brightest.
This book had its claws in me from page one and didn’t let go—not even during the overly stylized blackout pages or the moments when I was muttering “okay but how is this a functional military communication.” I needed to know what was going to happen. I stayed up too late. I skimmed ahead. I flipped back to double-check death dates. The mystery of AIDAN’s decisions, the growing dread aboard the Copernicus, the question of who would make it out—it had that rare, addictive quality where I forgot I was reading and just lived in the story. Intrigue is where this book shines brightest.
Logic / Relationships – 7.5/10
This is where things get a little shakier. I don’t mind soft sci-fi, but you’ve got to sell it. Sometimes Illuminae did—and sometimes it waved vaguely at plot holes and distracted me with an explosion. Kady’s superhuman hacking abilities were cool, but a little too convenient. The chain of command was baffling. The idea that the teens are allowed to do quite this much without military oversight? Hilarious. Relationships also sometimes leaned on shorthand: “they banter, therefore they’re in love” isn’t always enough. But when the book took its time—especially with grief, betrayal, or AIDAN’s horrifying logic—I felt the emotional weight.
This is where things get a little shakier. I don’t mind soft sci-fi, but you’ve got to sell it. Sometimes Illuminae did—and sometimes it waved vaguely at plot holes and distracted me with an explosion. Kady’s superhuman hacking abilities were cool, but a little too convenient. The chain of command was baffling. The idea that the teens are allowed to do quite this much without military oversight? Hilarious. Relationships also sometimes leaned on shorthand: “they banter, therefore they’re in love” isn’t always enough. But when the book took its time—especially with grief, betrayal, or AIDAN’s horrifying logic—I felt the emotional weight.
Enjoyment – 8.5/10
Did I enjoy this? Yes. Did I occasionally shout “you ridiculous drama queen of a book” at the pages? Also yes. Illuminae is loud, fast, ambitious, and a little messy—but it’s also undeniably fun. It made me feel things. It made me care about glitching AIs and doomed teenagers and whether a spaceship log could break my heart (spoiler: it did). Even with its flaws, I had a blast. I wouldn’t call it subtle, but it’s a damn good time—like watching a space opera unfold through an email inbox that just exploded.
Did I enjoy this? Yes. Did I occasionally shout “you ridiculous drama queen of a book” at the pages? Also yes. Illuminae is loud, fast, ambitious, and a little messy—but it’s also undeniably fun. It made me feel things. It made me care about glitching AIs and doomed teenagers and whether a spaceship log could break my heart (spoiler: it did). Even with its flaws, I had a blast. I wouldn’t call it subtle, but it’s a damn good time—like watching a space opera unfold through an email inbox that just exploded.
Final Score: 58/70 → 4.25 stars
Illuminae is a technothriller with a heart, a murderbot with a soul, and a formatting style that should be annoying but somehow works. It's not perfect, but it’s exactly the kind of emotionally-charged sci-fi chaos I come back to when I want to feel everything in bold, all-caps, and slightly corrupted files.
Illuminae is a technothriller with a heart, a murderbot with a soul, and a formatting style that should be annoying but somehow works. It's not perfect, but it’s exactly the kind of emotionally-charged sci-fi chaos I come back to when I want to feel everything in bold, all-caps, and slightly corrupted files.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Genocide, Gore, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic
Moderate: Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Mental illness, Self harm, Torture, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Abandonment
Minor: Ableism, Cursing, Fatphobia, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, Stalking, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Colonisation
This book deals heavily with death on a mass scale—plague, airlock ejections, AIs choosing “the greater good”—so expect a lot of loss and moral ambiguity. AIDAN’s perspective often blurs the line between logic and psychosis, and its actions include both cold-blooded mass murder and strangely tender manipulation. There’s no on-page sexual violence or explicit sex, but the emotional trauma is relentless, particularly around isolation, loss, and survivor’s guilt. This is space horror wrapped in teen grief, cyberpunk aesthetics, and war-crime spreadsheets. Proceed accordingly.
I had medium expectations for this book, despite the almost overwhelmingly positive reviews from everyone I know who's read it. Jay Kristoff's writing never completely works for me, but he's always an interesting author, and the small writing issues I usually have with him don't matter in the grand scheme, so I keep reading his stuff. The two books I've read by his co-author, Amie Kaufman, I haven't been very impressed with. So I kept my expectations low on purpose. This turned out to be a good idea, because this book did not blow my mind, as was promised.
It was fun and entertaining, but I think the unusual format is primarily responsible for most people's reactions, because the story is really pretty standard for YA and for sci-fi. It's like the authors pulled in every cool thing they could think of, from Battlestar Galactica and 2001: A Space Odyssey and stories about zombies and viruses and wherever, and stirred them all up in a cosmic soup of adventure. I am not opposed to this form of writing; I think it can be very successful. But for whatever reason, the combination of it all together, with the romance, and the case-file format (more on this in a bit) just summed up to be fun and okay for me, not anything that was hard-hitting emotionally. It's like my brain was too distracted by everything to really latch onto the story.
The format of the book is very fun, mostly because nothing like it has really been done before, not because it's done in such a way that is particularly amazing. The whole book is structured as a case-file compiled on behalf of the CEO of a large company, by a group that calls itself "Illuminae". The case-file documents track the story of two young inhabitants of an illegal mining operation based on an out of the way ice planet after the operation is destroyed by a rival corporation, and most of the people on the planet are killed. The survivors end up on a race through space to a functioning gate to get back to civilization, as the corporation tracks them tries to eliminate the rest of the survivors as well. This involves the deploying of a genetically engineered virus, and lots of nukes. The Terran ship that responded to the distress beacon has an AI that is damaged in the battle, and on top of everything else, begins to go mad and turn against the survivors, "for their own good." It's all very twisty and exciting, and I wish it would have worked better for me.
Our heroes are Kady, a young hacker, and Ezra, who is recruited into being a pilot on the journey. Kady and Ezra used to date, until she broke up with him on the morning their planet was destroyed. The files (which consist of chat transcripts, emails, voice logs, transcriptions of surveillance video, and files from the mad A.I, AIDAN, among other things) follow Kady and Ezra specifically, which is a bit puzzling until you get to the end and find out why.
The only thing in this book that really and truly grabbed me was the end, at which point. It was harrowing and nerve-wracking, and surprisingly affecting. Sadly, this was undercut somewhat by the very end of the book . But considering the genre, I shouldn't really have been that surprised how it turned out.
All in all, this is a book you should probably check out, since my reaction doesn't seem to be the most common. I will be reading the sequels, though. I'm hoping as it goes on, the story will become more about itself rather than feeling like bits and pieces taken from everywhere else. I think that's another reason I enjoyed the ending more than the beginning--it finally began to gel together.
[3.5 stars]
It was fun and entertaining, but I think the unusual format is primarily responsible for most people's reactions, because the story is really pretty standard for YA and for sci-fi. It's like the authors pulled in every cool thing they could think of, from Battlestar Galactica and 2001: A Space Odyssey and stories about zombies and viruses and wherever, and stirred them all up in a cosmic soup of adventure. I am not opposed to this form of writing; I think it can be very successful. But for whatever reason, the combination of it all together, with the romance, and the case-file format (more on this in a bit) just summed up to be fun and okay for me, not anything that was hard-hitting emotionally. It's like my brain was too distracted by everything to really latch onto the story.
The format of the book is very fun, mostly because nothing like it has really been done before, not because it's done in such a way that is particularly amazing. The whole book is structured as a case-file compiled on behalf of the CEO of a large company, by a group that calls itself "Illuminae". The case-file documents track the story of two young inhabitants of an illegal mining operation based on an out of the way ice planet after the operation is destroyed by a rival corporation, and most of the people on the planet are killed. The survivors end up on a race through space to a functioning gate to get back to civilization, as the corporation tracks them tries to eliminate the rest of the survivors as well. This involves the deploying of a genetically engineered virus, and lots of nukes. The Terran ship that responded to the distress beacon has an AI that is damaged in the battle, and on top of everything else, begins to go mad and turn against the survivors, "for their own good." It's all very twisty and exciting, and I wish it would have worked better for me.
Our heroes are Kady, a young hacker, and Ezra, who is recruited into being a pilot on the journey. Kady and Ezra used to date, until she broke up with him on the morning their planet was destroyed. The files (which consist of chat transcripts, emails, voice logs, transcriptions of surveillance video, and files from the mad A.I, AIDAN, among other things) follow Kady and Ezra specifically, which is a bit puzzling until you get to the end and find out why.
The only thing in this book that really and truly grabbed me was the end, at which point
Spoiler
the mad A.I. begins to question itself and really becomes a fascinating character. His relationship with Kady was enthralling, and what happens to them on the ship as all those affected by the virus tear each other apart had me so stressed outSpoiler
when it turns out that not only is Ezra still alive, after the gut-wrenching sequence where we learn AIDAN was pretending to be Ezra to get Kady to stay on board the ship, but Kady doesn't die either, after that huge whole ordeal it was just a bit muchAll in all, this is a book you should probably check out, since my reaction doesn't seem to be the most common. I will be reading the sequels, though. I'm hoping as it goes on, the story will become more about itself rather than feeling like bits and pieces taken from everywhere else. I think that's another reason I enjoyed the ending more than the beginning--it finally began to gel together.
[3.5 stars]
adventurous
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated