REVIEW: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Hello everyone! Long time, no see. It’s been a whole week since I last updated this blog. I’m not liking this habit that I’m getting into so, for the rest of this weekend, I’m going to be drafting most – all of the reviews that I still need to put up. Hopefully I can get all of the reviews up this coming week. I’m also going to be starting a new Wattpad novel. It’s called Damaged and it’s about a girl who suffers from an eating disorder while also living with an abusing father. It’s quite a deep subject but I think it will get interesting!

Now, instead of rambling about things that don’t have to do with this review, I’m just going to start typing the rest of this!

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Title: Illuminae

Authors: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Series: Illuminae Files #1

Publisher: Knopf Publishing

Release Date: October 20, 2015

ISBN: 9780553499117

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Goodreads Summary: 

This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

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My Review:

I loved this book. And yes, I say that to most books but, I completely, honestly mean it to this book. It was fantastic. It was amazing. It was amazing. It was **insert every good adjective here**. That’s what it was.

This book scared me at first. I had never read a book written through documents and files. Not even any of the little kid books that i used to read. Iluminae is not written through normal chapter style. actually now that i think about it, there aren’t any chapters. Written through different types of classified files and documents, Illuminae is a book that flows. There is not one dull moment in this book.

All the way from the exploding red on the cover to the black and white pages, this book was beautiful. Even without a jacket. Even through all of the different perspectives. It’s different than many other books. Many YA authors don’t take the risk of writing a pure sci-fi novel. Most prefer to stay within the sub-genre: Dystopia. But personally, I enjoy reading a book that talks about the universe, galaxies, aliens, etc.

Told through the perspectives of Kady, Ezra, AIDAN, and quite a few other crew members, we get to explore through all three spacecrafts: Hypatia, Alexander and Copernicus. Each ship was uniquely different. One contained all of the military personnel. One contained a bunch of tech genius’. And the other, well that one had a fatal virus floating through it. None of the ships were good to be on. Ezra Mason was on the Alexander. Kady Grant was on the Hypatia. AIDAN had control.

I definitely liked reading through both Ezra and Kady’s messages the best. They just fit together perfectly. It’s almost as if they didn’t break up the day Bio-Tech destroyed Kerenza. Their messages were filled with heart-wrenching love and sometimes even arguments. But what the two of them didn’t know was that they would one day see each other again.

I may be the only one who did not like AIDAN. He may’ve had control over everything but, he was very demanding. And he lied to Kady. Telling someone that the love of their life has died is not something to lie about. though maybe AIDAN didn’t know that Ezra never died. But in the end everything worked out. AIDAN got his way and ended up destroyed. Ezra survived and ended up happily with Kady.

Have any of you lovely viewers of my blog read Illuminae yet? If so, let’s talk about it in the comments!

Until next time, Happy Reading!

~Alaina