Genre: Sci-fi
Something in between a novel and a graphic novel, Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff is a hard book to review; it's an after-the-incident story told through a series of hacked classified documents, spaceship logs, interviews and emails.
What I like ✅ a unique way of storytelling (seriously. This knocked it up .5 of a star!) ✅ so. much. intrigue. ✅ the parts from AIDAN's perspective were stand-out ✅ poses complex interesting questions on the nature and definition of humanity and life
What I didn't like ✖ because of weird formatting or small font size, certain pages are distracting or difficult to read ✖ lack of chemistry between Ezra and Kady ✖ character development is pushed aside for plot; because of the strange book formatting, character establishment and development was difficult ✖ heavily borrowed elements from other sci-fi stories (AIDAN is a copy if 2001: A Space Odyssey's HAL, even borrowing the famous "I'm sorry I can't do that" line, space zombies were reminiscent of the possessed in The Reality Dysfunction series, and Battlestar Galactica's ships) ✖ the dreaded "they didn't really die" trope, and "character survives situation which should have killed them" trope ✖ I honestly skimmed over a couple of pages just because there wasn't any information worth taking in (a couple of pages were just rows and rows of stock photos of people)
Rating 3/5 🌟 Verdict
RECCOMENDED Discussion
What's your favourite sci-fi book or show?