Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

30 reviews

ran_sophia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

The whole book was an excellent read for me and the plot twists are well placed.  Even though the book has an untraditional format and the story is told through a lot of different document formats, I got started quite quickly and understanding the plot wasn't a problem.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Gore, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse and Death of parent

maeverose's review

Before I get to the review, if you were unaware, Jay Kristoff is racist and antisemitic, so if you wanna read this or any of his other books maybe buy them used.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand how people like this book. If you do, that’s great but wow it was so annoying to me. It literally took me over a year to get halfway through before I decided I couldn’t do it anymore.

Every character except Kady acted the exact same. They all acted like 15 year old boys who made misogynistic jokes and took nothing seriously.

Even the AI talks like a teenager’s edgy poetry

They were in an extremely dangerous and terrifying situation, literally watching people die in brutal ways, and they were cracking jokes as if everything was fine. The romance was cringey and felt completely out of place and unnecessary in this story. I have no idea why Kady liked Ezra. I’m 100% convinced that the only part Amie Kaufman got to write was Kady’s character and her scenes. The entire tone of this book was so off, it’s primarily focused on the romance, but there’s all of this extremely messed up stuff going on in the background that seems to be pretty urgent and important, but nobody is focusing on it as much as they should? And they’re cracking stupid jokes at the same time? 

Omg and can we talk about Ezra literally calling women ‘fems’..? You cannot convince me a woman wrote that.

The one thing I did like was the epistolary format of it. This could’ve been such a cool story if it had been written by different authors, had no romance, and got rid of the out-of-place humor. (And was adult instead of YA..)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Child death, Stalking, Confinement, Gore, Mental illness, Murder, and Grief

A pandemic, A virus that makes people homicidal

sarahsbooklife's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, War, Genocide, Death, Violence, Gore, Death of parent, and Gun violence

Moderate: Gaslighting, Confinement, Mental illness, Death of parent, Child death, Medical trauma, and Medical content

Minor: Cursing, Confinement, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Colonisation, and Fire/Fire injury

ashleereadsbooks692's review

adventurous dark funny 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Confinement, Cursing, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Terminal illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

asexualandriod's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.25

As a scifi novel, this book was amazing! The technology was explained to the perfect degree (not too little detail or too much detail). It brought up interesting moral questions. There was a twist at the end that surprised me, but also made sense! I liked the stakes of the narrative, it wasn't like a lot of scifi narratives where you know in the back of your head that they will survive. The format of the book (a post-events dossier) left the option of any character dying at any point.

So, you're probably asking, why the 3.25?

The characters, oh god the characters. The character we follow the most, Kady, is so painfully flat. And her relationship with Ezra is bland. You're supposed to believe that their romance is driving the narrative—the reason Kady makes most of her decisions—but I can barely believe they even like each other. This book, like many of its peers, fell into the trap of putting romance in a book that really didn't need romance. Kady and Ezra's relationship was extremely un-compelling, but I was able to kind of shrug and say, "Yeah, okay, whatever." to their romance, and focus on the scifi elements and unique story medium. Which isn't a good thing in terms of writing. 😅

However, the rest of the story is compelling enough to compensate, so I do want to read the rest of the trilogy. The espionage and secrets have me hooked. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Suicide, Blood, Death, Gore, and Violence

Minor: Confinement and Death of parent

cait's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny inspiring mysterious 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Violence, War, Body horror, Confinement, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Alcohol, Gore, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Blood, Child abuse, Grief, Medical trauma, Mass/school shootings, Mental illness, Police brutality, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

birdy's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Murder, Violence, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Stalking, Suicide, Terminal illness, Blood, Death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Genocide, Torture, Body horror, and Child death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Gun violence, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Confinement, Cursing, Death of parent, War, and Medical trauma

Minor: Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, and Child abuse

badwolf_books's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, and Violence

girlbossclytemnestra's review

adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Colonisation, Death, Gore, and Violence

short_circuit's review

adventurous dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

"the universe owes you nothing, kady. it has already given you everything, after all. [...] the only way it will remember you is if you do something worthy of remembrance."

god knows i love a morally grey AI with a fucked up code of ethics and a thing for the most badass human girl in outer space

"gaslight gatekeep girlboss" AIDAN
just plain girlboss kady
ezra honey i love u but your girlfriend is so so much cooler

(please heed the content warnings on this one, folks. whole lotta violence and death and shooting and whatnot. there's no tag for "illness", but the main part of the story involves people being infected with a virus that makes them go insane, so i tagged it with "terminal illness" to be safe.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Suicide, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mass/school shootings, Grief, Genocide, Gore, Confinement, Body horror, Blood, and Terminal illness