Confessions of a Literary Addict

This review is spoiler-free!

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files #1
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction
Release Date: October 20th 2015 by Knopf Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, 602 pages
Rating: ★★★★★
Find it here: Goodreads || Book Depository

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.

BRIEFING NOTE: 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.

People have been raving about this book for ages, and I’ve had a copy for myself for possibly even longer (pretty sure I bought this back when I impulsively bought dozens of books based on covers alone), but I only just finally made myself sit down and read it this year, since the final book in the trilogy was coming out, and. Man. I’m almost upset I waited so long.

This is the kind of book I love.

I’m a sucker for sci-fi, I’m a sucker for cool formatting, and I’m absolute trash for horrific stories set in space. This book was made for people like me.

(Well, sort of. Could have done without the romance, but honestly wasn’t miffed by the fact it was there. I’m just not a romance kind of gal, I want the action and the sarcastic quips.)

So, yeah, I loved this book. So much. Especially the cool pages where the text was all over the place and you had to turn the book around to get everything in the right reading order. (Except I can read upside down so I didn’t really have to, but it was an amazing format all the same.) I just absolutely devoured segments of it like a dying creature hungry for sustenance. It was so good.

However. Due to the spoiler-free nature of this review, I can’t say a single word about what I really want to talk about, because it’s one of the twists, and I don’t even want to talk about the character involved in it because it’s so much better to go in not knowing a single thing about them, like I had, because then you’re not prepared for anything to come. Sure, you know something’s going to happen at some point, but the total obscurity to the story itself regarding this character just makes it that much more fun, and I am not going to be the one to tell you who to watch out for. 😉

So, really, all this book review can really be is me screaming at the heavens that I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!!!!

If you like science fiction, even just a little, read this. Yeah, the romance might put you off, but do it for the format and the main story, because the romance really is barely there at all. It’s all about the … uh, journey, let’s say. Just give it a try, get to some of the cool text parts, and decide how you feel from there. Because it’s just so good. Ugh.

I’ll also be reviewing the other two in the series (spoiler-free for the book itself, probably, but not for previous books in the series), so stick around for that if you’re interested!

Thanks for reading!