Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1) by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff Series: The Illuminae Files #1
Published by Allen & Unwin on November 1, 2015
Source: Publisher
Genres: Young Adult
Amazon | Book Depository | Publisher | Angus & Robertson
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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.
I am just a ball of emotion right now. A rollercoaster of feels. A basket of incomprehensible emotions.
What a stunning way to tell a story! The most attractive thing about Illuminae is the way it tells a story through a range of data files – interviews, chat logs, surveillance footage wrapups and the thoughts of AIDAN, an A.I. computer. Watching Illuminae unfold is like a visual feast for the eyes, it is amazing.
The downside to the creative formatting of the book, is that we never really get to feel and experience what is inside the characters’ heads. We simply witness how they say things through their chat logs, their actions through the surveillance footage and their conversations they have with the people around them. This is genius though, because through this, we still get a picture of who Kady is. The brave, fierce, intelligent and snarky hacker who has a heart full of love and longing. And also who Ezra is, the hilarious, romantic and loyal soldier who cares so much about his team, and his regret for letting Kady go.
“I wonder if she is the kind to dream of happy endings and never risk tragedy. The kind to close her eyes and hope, rather than force them open and see the truth, wonderful or terrible as it is. I do not wonder long.”
Basically two amazing, intelligent people who deserve one another. Through their flirty, hilarious snarky banter, the jokes that they make, their fears and their dreams for one another, you feel just how much they care for one another. And you long for them to reunite as much as they do and you just want them to have everything.
Illuminae is not just a love story though, it’s a sci-fi space opera, with zombies (pretty much my favourite thing ever). The heroes are on two different ships – the scientific space vessel Hypatia and the battleship Alexander, shuttling through space and they have a conspiracy to unravel. Through the book, we learn about the strange virus afflicting people onboard Alexander, the attempts to cover it up from those in high commands and their quest for survival. As with any zombie horde, things get pretty dire and all odds have to be faced for survival. It’s a thrilling visceral experience, and the artwork just makes it all the more impactful while reading.
“My databases show no record of this crazytown of which you speak. A brain the size of a city burns inside me. My intelligence quotient is beyond the human scale. I would prefer if you did not refer to me in such fashion.”
It also features the best AI voice I’ve ever experienced, AIDAN in all of his glory. He speaks in a very poetic, robotic tone, void of emotion, but as he gets broken up and worn down, it’s like he actually feels, and cares about human life. I loved AIDAN’s sarcasm and robotic humour.
While Illuminae was amazing, emotional and wonderfully experiential, I do think the story dragged at times, where I struggled to grasp the emotional weight of the situation. In place of words, pictures were used to display the impact of what I should be feeling, and at every tense moment I would be like WHATTT TELL ME WHAT HAPPENS NOW. I guess that’s all a part of it though. The other thing is the finer detail of what is going on; the character tensions, the plotting and conspiracy is left up to the reader to put two and two together. I like how it’s for the intelligent reader and I think I’ll have to read it again to grasp fully.
Illuminae is an experiential space adventure that places the reader at the helm, handing you data files to read and understand what happened in space. With beautiful artwork, unique case files and some beautifully strong characters, it’s an emotional, memorable and intelligent read. The hype for this book is real guys. Get on it.
Rating: 5 out of 5
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[…] You can check out Jeann’s review of the book on Happy Indulgence right here. […]
Lovely review, Jeann! This book absolutely blew me away. I love how the story was told, and that we still get such a great picture of Kady and Ezra's personalities. Both characters still stood out so much to me. And their romance! One of my favorites.
Thanks Danielle, I loved it so much and I can't stop thinking about Kady and Ezra too!
As soon as I saw this one popping up on instagram hauls I went out and bought it and it sounds like I didn't make a mistake-I'm SO excited to start this. It's a little sad that we don't get to really establish a connection to the characters personally but everything else seems great, and I absolutely love a book that can make me laugh. Nice review 🙂
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I'm so glad you have it already Alise – I hope you enjoy it! It's such a wonderful, creative book, really great.
I think everyone is a ball of messy emotions after reading this book! GAH. SO MUCH BRILLIANCE. Although you do bring up an interesting point about how we never get to experience what's inside of the characters' heads. But I think the creative way with how they did this made up for that fact. Because we get to see the WHOLE of these people, and not just THEIR own perspectives and experiences. It's basically 3rd person, right, except we're not actually in their perspective? I don't know, but it was damn good. Loved your review, Jeann! 🙂
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I completely agree, it was done so creatively and I liked Kady's diary portions which allowed us to see that you know? It was done really well, at first I worried about how it would be told and how we would connect to the story but turns out I didn't have to worry about that. Thank you Holly! Hope you're doing well with Nano!
I'm trying! I'm trying! Lol. I'm stuck somewhere in the middle, unfortunately.
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Oh man, I hope it ends up being awesome for you Joy!
This book was incredible. AIDAN's voice was definitely one of my favorite parts. I think it's one of the most realistic depictions of AI I've read/seen in a very long time. I think the most terrifying thing about the virus was that even though they were "zombies", they appeared to still have conscious thought… GAH it was terrifying to think about it like that. I'm in a huge book hangover, seriously!
I know, I haven't read a book with an AI character before so it was amazing to hear his point of view. They were fast, intelligent zombies which made it even scarier I reckon! It gave me a huge hangover as well!
OMG I HAVE SEEN SO MUCH RAVING ABOUT THIS BOOK! I feel weird that I haven't read it yet but when I do I am expecting big things 🙂 The unique format definitely seems to set this book apart, and when it comes to a sci-fi adventure executed well, it can't get much better than that! Thanks for the fantastic review Jeann 🙂
It is freaking awesome Genie, I loved the unique formatting and the sci-fi adventure was truly amazing. No problems, I hope you enjoy it!
Wow this sounds so good. I've been putting off reading it because I know it's a series and I was hoping I could just binge it one day, but I don't think I can resist! I had no idea until your review that it had ZOMBIES. I love zombies. I need to read this ASAP!
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Yesss I think you should read it ASAP Jade, it is awesome and I don't think you'd be disappointed!
LOVED this book. I feel like I have nothing to say other than like, "holy crap, HOW?" How did the authors do this?! I want to just sit in front of them and interrogate them and then inquire if maybe they are some kind of wizards? Because how they had me so emotionally connected to computers and people who never actually told the story is beyond me. It's just brillianT! Fabulous review, far more coherent than mine would be 😉
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I know right? It just felt like a beautiful visual medium and a great way to tell a story, it was just done so well! HAha thank you so much, I tried 😉
Totally agree with you on this book in pretty much every way. I LOVED it (but I did miss a little bit of the emotional impact at certain parts for the same reason you did).
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I loved it so much NIcole, it sounds like we had similar thoughts on it!
YES TO THIS! I am so glad you liked this as much as I did. It's such an amazing book, isn't it? Kady is so kickass, and Ezro is hilarious. And the twists and turns are just mind-blowing. So glad you liked it so much Jeann, and thanks for sharing! <3
"Am I not merciful?"
I loved both of the characters, they were so wonderful! Oh man, that quote just kills me.
gah what a great review. I can definitely see the downside of this format, but it looks so new, so refreshing, different from normal that it just makes my itchy hands want
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Yesss you must get it, it's such a beautiful unique way to tell a story!
Wow! The synopsis looks INCREDIBLE!!! I love your review. 🙂 I will definitely add this to my TBR, it sounds AMAZING!
-Amy
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Yesss I'm so glad to hear you're keen on reading it Amy! I hope you enjoy it!
Absolutely! It sounds INCREDIBLE and I actually found a copy at a neighboring town's library haha. :-)-Amy
I literally have NOT read one bad review of this book so far! Gah. It looks so brilliant. I have this sitting on my shelf just waiting to be devoured–and every time I look through it, I'm blown away by how amazing the art is. <3
Omg Kara you must pick it up now, it's amazing!
Although I had some problems with this book, I am glad to hear that you enjoyed it! I agree that the designs were stunning, kudos to the designer for pulling it off. Aidan was my favourite character in the book 😀
I know, how amazing was Aidan? He was hilarious.
1. No wonder a lot of people love this.
2. And it is better to read this via physical book, I feel like the ebook version won't be as pretty
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I completely agree, I would definitely read the physical version Braine! So much wonderful artwork!
Yes the hype is reallllll! For me, the format was a change, and I thought I also wasn't going to be affected by these characters because how could that possibly happen through case files and chats and the likes? Well I was wrong big time lol.
So glad you enjoyed this just as much as I did Jeann!
That's what I thought too, while reading reviews I was like how are we supposed to find out what happens? Turns out it was fine!
OH MY GOSH IT'S SO AMAZING. I don't even like sci-fi but it's one of my favourite reads of the year. I do think it's difficult to feel connection when it's formatted like that, but I like how different it is. Definitely one I'd have to reread before the next one comes out 🙂
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YESSS I'm so glad you ended up enjoying this sci-fi book Emily! It's definitely unique for all book lovers to read.
YAAAY! Just picked this guy up recently, and I'm so excited! The book seriously looks (and sounds) amazing! Glad this book lived up to the hype for you! I know what I'll be doing over my break from school!
Awesome review, Jeann!
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Awesome, I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it Cyn!
Ahhhhh! I'm so happy you loved this one, Jeann! And I LOVE your review! It was truly a phenomenal book, wasn't it? And the zombies! They were fascinating and terrifying. I'm ready for more, tbh! The next book will be give me so many heart attacks. I can already tell.
Lovely review! 🙂
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I know, how awesome and scary were those space zombies? That made me love it more tbh!
I am so beyond ready to read this book!!! Awesome review!
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I completely agree! I hope you enjoy it!
Couldn't agree more Jeann! Such a fun experience, right? I thought they did a great job with the action scenes too, since everything has already happened, but it feels very immediate. Awesome review!
I know, I absolutely loved what they did to demonstrate what was happening, with the chats and surveillance footage! It was done so well.
YAY FIVE STAR RATING 😀 😀 😀 aren't Kady and Ezrea just made for each other? LITERALLY THIS BOOK MADE ME LAUGH IN ONE PAGE AND CRY IN THE NEXT. SO MANY EMOTIONSSS.
I know right? At first I was like why is it focusing ao much on them two and then it all ties together. So amazing! So many emotions!
YEP! I simply adoooored Illuminae to bits and I cannot wait for my finished book to finally get here so I can re-read because I NEED TO RE-READ IT!!
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So glad to hear you loved it too Pili! I'm looking forward to re-reading it as well.
Everyone loves this!! So glad it is living up to the hype. I am so excited to get this because it just sounds (and looks) amazing. I am still a little worried how the story will move along with this format but I am sure it will be fin. Great review!
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I completely agree, it was so fantastic how they did it all and told the story through the different ship logs! Hope you enjoy it Grace!
I was very hesitant to add this book to my TBR because I prefer tradional writing format. But couple of days ago I caved in and purchased it from Bookdepository. Now while I wait for it to arrive, this review is heaven sent! Your review makes me sooo super excited to read it. Especially after your comment about how "it’s for the intelligent reader and I think I’ll have to read it again to grasp fully". Guess I am in for another Matrix 🙂
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Yesss I'm so glad my review makes you excited about the book! It really is a creative format and definitely worth experiencing.
AAHHH IT LOOKS SO BEAUTIFUL
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Its sooooo pretttyyyyy!
AFDJAKLSD I AM SO EXCITED TO START THIS I AM BASICALLY FLAPPING AROUND LIKE A DERANGED OCTOPI!! Actually, I have to finish Mosquitoland first. XD And then I have to decide between Illuminae and Every Word and it's looking to be a very hard decision. hehehhh. But still! I'm so excited and so glad you totally adored it! 😀
Illuminae, Cait. Always Illuminae.
I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO READ IT AND LOVE IT. Then you can join us in the flailing!