Retro Review: Illuminae (The Illuminae Files #1)

When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.

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4 stars. Off-the-cuff and unfiltered review for this, FYI: Cute. Clever. Visually stunning. Too much snark, a little too much romance, and too long - reading this felt really tedious at times. Also, unexpectedly and unnecessarily BRUTAL. Like, super deep and super savage and wow there is so much to unpack about the universe and technology and scary situations in space. Also, why can’t anybody I know write a realistic, believable teenage boy? Just curious. But it was entertaining and unique and I really, really love epistolary novels.

Let’s go deeper. Favorite character? AIDAN, by far. I wonder what that says about the living, breathing characters. I guess I would put forth that humor doesn’t necessarily give a character soul, you know? I really enjoyed the gender dynamics, and Kady is a badass heroine, but I just didn’t feel - hmm. Genuinely invested, if that makes sense. There’s also a really strange juxtaposition of hard-hitting science fiction stuff and insanely superficial melodrama. Maybe it’s a personal thing, but I just can’t go from the most intense moral quandary in the history of the universe straight to romantic miracles.

I don’t want to get carried away. I really admire the care with which this book was put together. It’s beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. It’s creative and action-packed and I will likely continue to read this story. It was an enjoyable reading experience overall and I can’t bring myself to give something that obviously took so much effort less than 4 stars. Despite my quibbles, that feels like the right rating.

Illuminae on: Amazon | Goodreads