Tuesday 17 January 2017

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Series: The Illuminae Files,#1

Published: 20th October 2015 by Knopf Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Description:
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. 

My thoughts:
Illuminae is freaking amazing! I absolutely loved it! It is a fantastic story told in a unique way that I throughly enjoyed.

The formatting of Illuminae is what really makes the book special. The story is told through IMs, survallience footage, interviews, transcripts of audio recordings, emails and lots more types of multi media. This unique format is hard to get used to in the beginning, the first 50 pages or so were difficult for me to follow the but I pushed through and eventually it started to make sense. Because of the unique formatting we get lots of POVs which is great, even artificial intelligence which is so cool!

I loved the two main characters Kady and Ezra so much. They were great. I had a hard time really connecting to Kady because it's all through dialogue it is hard to really get to know her but with time I really grew to love her. She is one of the coolest characters ever; she is a freaking genius computer hacker! And she is really pro-girlpower which I love and she so so sarcastic and blunt I loved it! Ezra was freaking hilarious; he is so snarky and just anytime he was in a scene it was so much fun. The banter between the two of them was on point. The authors really captured teen voices in their characters. The way they spoke (well typed since it was IMing mostly) was so relatable and realistic. Their relationship was so fun to read and was developed perfectly. 

The plot was a bit slow in the start; there is a goo bit of build up but then it gets crazy. Once it got going to story was so intense, with some surprises here and there, it was so addictive,I couldn't put it down. I was constantly on edge wondering will they make it or won't they make it.

I'm not a huge sci-fi reader so I was apprehensive going in that I wouldn't have a clue what was going on but it was grand. Illuminae is very sci-fi- there is spaceships and computers and artificial intelligence but I didn't have a problem with it at all. 

The ending makes me so excited for the next instalment in the series; I've heard the second book is about different characters so it will be interesting to see how their story connects with Illuminae.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed Illuminae, it was nothing like I've ever read before and I highly recommend it!

My rating: 4.5 stars out of 5
Thanks for reading,
A :)

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