A review by asexualandriod
Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

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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