Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff – A Spoiler-Free Review

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

First off, I feel like I might be the one person in the blogosphere who hadn’t read this book. Now I’m the only person in the blogosphere who hasn’t read Gemina!

Normally, I’d put the synopsis here. But I’m not going to this time in case you wanted to read it as I did.

I decided to read Illuminae on hype alone. Everyone was talking about it. The cover looked amazing. I never once read the back blurb, and I purposefully stayed away from any and all reviews. I’m not sure how much that enhanced my reading of it, just that it did.

I had no idea what was going on, where the book was heading, who the characters were… just nothing. That could’ve been dangerous. It might have led to me putting the book down, but it didn’t.

Instead, I had 599 pages of riding a rollercoaster through the dark. And it was awe-inspiring.

I could see the format worrying some people. It took a little getting used to, but after books like World War Z and Robopocalypse it didn’t take me more than a few pages.

There’s no true narrative as we all classically know it. The idea is that the book is a collection of digital files. Emails, interview transcripts, chat histories, personal diaries, etc.

You might think this leads to a cold, emotionless read, but you’d be dead wrong. This thing is teeming with all twists, turns, and of the feels that go with them.

In the spirit of giving you the choice of reading this book blind, I’ll keep this short and not give any details about the plot.

The last thing I’ll say is that the book looks daunting. It’s thick. It’s 600 pages. By no means the biggest book out there, but definitely above average. Contrary to that, you’ll find yourself burning through pages. Not just because the story is so good (and it is) but the format just allows for it. No matter how matter pages you normally read in a sitting, Illuminae will make you double or triple that.

Trust me. Just read it.

Fun fact about this post: My memory is so bad that I look at my shelves to see what else I had read with a unique format.