REVIEW: ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Title: Illuminae

Author: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Series: The Illuminae Files #1
Genres: YA, Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Source: Physical copy
Pages: 599

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BLURB: 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.

 

So who has not heard of this book? I have waited for my own copy for so long but when I finally did I could not put it down.

 

WARNING! MIGHT CONTAIN MINOR SPOILERS! WARNING!

THE WORLD: If being honest the world is kinda hard to explain. But I will try. So basically we have this galaxy where some planets are colonized. There are also planets which are colonized illegally and all sort of illegal things are happening. This is the kind of planet we center on. So out planet gets attacked by somebody aka spaceships. The people on our planet try to escape. So because our planet is a colony we have several spaceships around it for like storage, scientific purposes and so on. Plus when attack happens the planet sends a SOS call and a ship nearby gets it and well comes to help. But this ship is not enough so people get evacuated. In the end only our ship which come to help called Alexander, a scientific ship Hypatia and storage ship Copernicus manage to escape. Alexander being armed ship managed to fight off the invading ships for now but their own damage is also extensive. Therefore, with no ability to open space gates to safety they have to travel through galaxy to the nearest platform and at the same time escape from the invading ships which are coming after them in order to kill them off and not let anybody know about the invasion. But that is not all that Biotech (invading ships) did, they also released a virus but only managed to do in isolated are so only people in Copernicus came in contact with it. That is pretty much what I can tell. The rest I must leave to you to find out because the things that happen...AMAZING!

CHARACTERS: There are rather a few characters in this book but I will talk only about a few. Let's start with Kady...oh my she was annoying. If not for the brilliance of the book itself I would not be able to stand Kady. She is a teenager who sorta discovers that she is a super hacker. Really really hated her. So arrogant and self centered. Then there is Ezra, Kady's ex boyfriend. Opposite to Kady, I really liked Ezra, he cares about people and he also cared about Kady even she made very clear many times that she had none whatsoever care for him. But my favorite was Aiden...he is well he is and AI aka artificial intelligence. Basically he is a computer program which runs Alexander. A brilliant just brilliant character. And we also get to see how he grows...loved it to bits. 

LOVE: There is romance going on between Kady and Ezra but frankly I already forgot all about it.

PLUS: Now let me just tell you, this book is written in such an amazing format but it was not the reason why I loved it so much. It was because of Aiden and because of the virus. Damn. So so good! I cannot really tell you much about it because well spoilers but trust me on this, the way it was done was just so unique...no brainless nonsense. Amazing, just purely amazing! And also so creepy! The little bird stuff, those who read the book will know what I am talking about. So so creepy!

MINUS: Oh wow, you have no idea how much I hated the ending. It was just whaaaaaat?! So so terrible. I only hope the next book is not gonna be all about the stuff that happened in the end because....booooooring! And also the super happy ending. What was that?! So so disappointed. I refuse to acknowledge the final ending of this book. I just refuse.

OVERALL: Very nervous about the next book. Illuminae was absolutely brilliant but I have doubts about the next one.

 

What did you think of ILLUMINAE?