A review by maeverose
Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
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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