Illuminae Spoil Free Book Review

Illuminae 

By Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Genre: Science fiction, Young Adult fiction 

Illuminea is a very fun book about a race between four spaceships. Three of them, the battle carrier Alexander, the science vessel Hypatia, and the freighter Copernicus, are full of refugees from Kerenza IV after BeiTech Industries attacked. The fourth ship, the Lincoln, is hunting them down because they are the only witnesses to the atrocity that happened on Kerenza IV. If that weren't enough, at the same time the refugees have a malfunctioning AI and an outbreak of a deadly plague on board as well.

Going beyond the plot, the characters are also very enjoyable and fleshed out, even some of the smaller side characters feel real with distinct personalities adding another layer to the story. For our main characters we have Kady, who is a very talented hacker who just wants to know the truth about what's going on. She hates that the people in charge don't give out the full truth, keeping some information from the refugees on board. Then there is her ex-boyfriend Ezra. Now Ezra is very different from Kady. He is very sporty and much more of a team player. So while Kady doesn't trust anyone, Ezra just hates BeiTech and what's this whole thing to be done.

The format of the book is also very fun and was the first thing that drew me in when I saw it at the store. The whole story is told through documents. You have transcribed conversations, emails, direct messaging, pictures and diagrams, sometimes there are web searches and notes attached to the documents. There are also video files that are transcribed by an unknown voice who is clearly not a professional. The narrator has a way of lighting up darker parts of the story and will sometimes skip over grosser parts. They also react to what is going on with you which is interesting where they might be sad or angry or just cracking jokes. In all I think the format helped the digestibility of this story since there were so many degrees of separation from the events of the story. It helps with the grief and PTSD of the characters not also crushing the reader or slowing the story down to deal with those feelings.

Overall, I absolutely loved the story. The plot keeps you on your toes and the characters are so dynamic that they feel real. The authors also found a fun medium for the story to help readers understand some of the more complex parts of the story and skip over information that isn't very necessary.

All my friends are dropping their kin lists, here’s mine.

Izuku Midoriya

Patton (Sander Sides)

Percy Jackson

Alphonse Elric

What do you think?