A review by lawbooks600
Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

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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