Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Published: November 1, 2015

One moment, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason have nothing bigger to worry about than each other. Specifically, avoiding each other in the wake of their messy break-up. In the next second, their entire world falls apart.

The year is 2375 and one of the mega-corporations that control much of deep space has just fired the opening salvo in an intergalactic war, destroying Kady and Ezra’s planet. Forced to flee on a small fleet of crippled rescue ships alongside thousands of other refugees, the fear of enemy warships chasing them down is at first all-consuming but soon becomes the least of their worries. A deadly plague is ravaging the refugees on the ships; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be an enemy; and High Command is refusing to acknowledge that there may be a serious problem. As Kady plunges into a tangled web of data in search of the truth, she realizes that Ezra is possibly the only person who can help her save the refugees before it’s too late

Holy cow. This was so awesome!

I cannot even begin to explain how great of a reading experience this was. I absolutely loved this book and it was one of the greatest reading experiences I’ve ever had. Nothing like it.

I wasn’t expecting Illuminae to be as good as it was. I loved Kady and I thought she was an amazingly strong and stubborn character. And I was literally on the edge of my seat every time AIDAN did something well…a bit crazy. I was insanely impressed with how much emotion and how much excitement and great plot line you get from such a different format of a book.

I have to say I read 1/2 the book on it’s own and then 1/2 with the audiobook as a companion and I have to say, it was even more so phenomenal with the audiobook companioning the read. I wasn’t surprised at how quickly I read this but I was EXTREMELY surprised with how complex the plot got and how it kept a great flow throughout the book.

I think I connected more with the characters since a lot of the content was through personal IMs and personal comms as well as e-mails and audio/video surveillance  which I thought was a great and new way to get the reader to connect to characters in a very new and original way.

As for the plot, I thought it was great and I absolutely adored the plots constant twists and turns and consistently happening “Oh crap, what’s happening next, do I put the book down? No I cant!”