Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff is the first in the YA Illuminae Files series.
“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.
Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.”
This book was just AMAZING!
For one thing, the book as a whole is written very uniquely. Instead of the normal line by line format that all the millions of books take on, Illuminae is written as a bunch of photocopied files that come together to tell the story of Kady and Evan.
At first I was a little skeptical that the world building may lack a little, but then I began to read the first page. Immediately I was hooked!
If I could summarize this series so far, it would without a doubt be THE WALKING DEAD meets spaceships!
I never read or even heard about what exactly this book entailed, but I was pleasantly surprised that the story took this turn. I thought it was going to be more of an action-packed thriller just based on how the authors introduced the world. We get the whole invasion scenario which of course the characters miraculously get away from, but then the story takes on a sci-fi/space aspect that was so much fun to read about.
The characters as a whole felt very linked to the world. How the two characters evolved didn’t shock me too much UNTIL THE GIANT BOMB the authors threw our way. I was sitting along with the characters feeling hopeless in a corner. Especially for me, there was a lot of “this is it” moments. But as the story get more and more intense, the authors kept shocking me on the twists and creepy turns Kady had to navigate through.
I was EXTREMELY caught off guard by the ending. It was executed beautifully. Illuminae deserves the full 5 out of 5 star. From the plot to the twists to the characters all the way through the end, just an overall fantastic story. And the fact that it is a series just has me hooked!
Can’t wait to dive into Gemina soon!!
Published: 20 October 2015
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Pages: 600
How I Read It: Hardcover
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Treestand Book Reviews 