Illuminae | Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Book: Illuminae

Author: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Age Rating: young adult (12+)

Page Count: 608 pages

Star Review: 4/5 stars

Summary: 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 a speck at the edge of the universe. Now with enemy fire raining down on thm, Kady and Ezra--who are barely even talking to each other--are forced to evacuate with a hostile warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A plague has broken out and is mutating at terrible results; the fleet's AI may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what's really going on. As Kady hacks into a web of data to find the truth, it's clear the only person who can help her is her ex-boyfriend she swore she'd never speak to again.

Memorable Quote: "Perhaps bravery is simply the face humanity wraps around its collective madess."

As my first review of 2019, I'm happy to say it was a book I loved!! Can't wait to see what other amazing books I'll read this year.

This book was outstanding. I was hooked, physically incapable of putting the book down cuz it was just that good. I haven't read sci-fi in a bit and if there was any way to get me back hooked on the genre, this book was it. It was crafted beautifully and told so uniquely through chats, emails, security footage descriptions and so many more things that just made the book so interesting to read.

I'm going to start by talking about Kady's character. I hated her at first. She annoyed me so much and seemed to think the world revolved around her. Or that she was the focus of Ezra's life or something. This annoyed me because she sure seemed to believe Ezra was obsessed with her. But as the book went on, she started learning she wasn't the queen of everything. Then she became this strong female main character I loved. I enjoyed Ezra the whole time and he's a good example of a character who uses humor to hide painful emotions. As for the minor characters, Jimmy and Byron were great and I adored reading about them. While we're still on the topic of characters, one of the book's biggest problems for me was actually the fact that there were so many characters. There were times I had to go back to see who 'CitB' was or whether or not we had already been introduced to 'Stephanie LaFevre' or something of the sort. Long story short, there were definitely an abundance of characters.

Next was one of my favorite parts of the book. AIDAN, the AI. The character was very interesting and I feel it's inclusion was a whole 'What'll happen if we give AI too much power?' scenario, which I really enjoyed since it's a question I find interest in. Its development was also interesting to watch it grow from a cold-blooded killer to something that's began to feel human emotions for Kady. I thought that was a very interesting plot point to use and it was interesting.

Just a warning though, the book does get slightly hard to follow. I had to go back a few times to get information cleared up. It's NOT an easy book and if you skim it, you'll miss a lot of information.

Would I recommend? ONLY for sci-fi fans. It wouldn't appeal to those who don't like science fiction