Review: The Illuminae Files Series Review

I binge read this series after getting sucked in by Illuminae.  I tried to read Illuminae several years ago via audio after hearing how awesome it was but I just couldn't get into it.  The epistolary nature of the book was  hard for me to follow the first time around.  Fast forward a few more years and about a hundred audiobooks later and I decided to give it another try.  I've listened to a few more books of this type and really enjoyed them.  I'm really glad I gave this series another shot, it was worth every second.  I'm actually sad to be done with it and almost want to start over from the beginning and binge it again.  The full cast was amazing and has some of my favorite narrators in the audio world.  I highly recommend checking out the books themselves as Marie Lu's illustrations in the print books are just awesome and give amazing visuals to an already excellent storyline.


Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was amazing. It tells the story of Kady and Ezra, a former couple who have been forced to flee their home when evil corporation Bei-Tech attacks the planet they live on. When ships come to rescue the survivors of the attack, Kady ends up on one ship and Ezra ends up on another. In this universe, soldiers fight for corporations, and because we have two corporations at war, Ezra ends up being conscripted as a fighter pilot. Kady has a bad attitude, so she doesn't end up in military service but that doesn't mean she isn't a whiz with computers. Secretly Kady is a genius hacker while pretending to be inept.

As Kady and Ezra reunite via electronic means and begin to patch up their relationship, Bei-Tech is on the heels of the escaping fleet. In the meantime, the AI computer onboard on of the ships appropriately named AIDEN starts doing crazy stuff to protect the fleet. AIDEN is one of my favorite characters because you just don't know what he's going to do next. He's a computer, but he keeps giving you the vibe that he's a little bit human too, and he is completely unpredictable. Not only do the crew and passengers of the 3 ships in the fleet have to deal with their home being destroyed, an attack ship coming after them, but now they have a deadly virus spreading on one of the ships, and their AI system is going insane.

The story is told through emails, instant messages, radio transmission transcripts, and other mixed media. The audiobook is amazing because it has a full cast and each character has a voice so you almost always know who is speaking. This was such and exciting book to read. I was always on the edge of my seat wanting to know what was going to happen next. I loved the characters and the world building was amazing. This story is incredibly atmospheric and I loved every second of it. I also recommend checking out the actual book. The drawings and mixed media on the page are amazing and while not necessary to understand what is going on, they are really cool.

Gemina by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This picks up where Illuminae left off, but instead of telling us more about Kady and Ezra, we learn about Hanna, Jackson, Nik and Ella. We heard a bit about the Heimdall jump station in Illuminae, as the refugees are heading there. Heimdall is a wormhole station for interstellar travel and communication. Kady's father is stationed there and Hanna's father is the commander. Hannah is Heimdall's pampered princess, she is dating the cute technician Jackson, but she likes to have fun. Fun is where Nik comes in, he is part of the space mafia family who run drugs and other nasty things. He is also a little sweet on Hannah. Ella is Nik's cousin and another super genius hacker. We come to find out that Bei-Tech isn't only out to shut down Kerenza's mining operation, they are also out to take over Heimdall. When a strike team invades the station because there is a mole planted on Heimdall, Hanna, Nik, and Ella are found defending the station from the bad guys.

Just like in Illuminae, the cast of characters finds themselves fighting several different battles at the same time. Nik's mafia family runs drugs remember? Well the critters they use to produce those drugs get loose and start attacking anyone they come across. Oh and the wormhole generator is broken, and all the dimensions of space and time will be destroyed if our motley crew can't fix all of the the above mentioned problems. Our favorite insane AI along with Kady, Ezra, and the rest of the survivors on the Hypatia make a return to help Hanna, Nik, and Ella.

I loved this book. It was funny, atmospheric, the world building was awesome, action packed, and I loved all of the characters. Like Illuminae this is told through mixed media. The full cast of characters was as amazing as the last book. I also recommend checking out the print book so you can see Marie Lu's amazing illustrations.

Obsidio by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with the previous two books, the audio cast was spectacular. I highly recommend the audio version, the print version is excellent as well. As with the prior books I did both at the same time and the illustrations from the print book just add a little something extra, but the full cast really gives life to each of the mixed media transmissions presented in the story. I will say I could have done without the date and timestamps being read to me every time we switched who was speaking or what the transmission in the file was. If you were reading the print book you would have skimmed over that part, but it was read to you on the audiobook and after three books you know who's voice is which character by now. That is really my only complaint.

Obsidio jumps settings quite a bit. Heimdall has been saved, but the Hypatia is on her last legs. We meet some new characters as we learn that there are survivors on Kerenza, oh and AIDEN is still insane and doing his own thing. As with the previous books, the gang is fighting more than one problem at a time before all is said and done. Our new characters Rhys and Asha are on opposite sides of the Kerenza conflict. Rhys is a techy soldier working for Bei-Tech, but he has a strong moral code and doesn't exactly know or support what Bei-Tech is doing on the ground on Kerenza. He has spent most of his time working on the mobile wormhole generator that Bei-Tech flies around with in their fleet. Asha, who happens to be Kady's cousin, works in the hospital and she is just trying to survive. We come to find out that Rhys and Asha had a romance in the past that didn't exactly end well for either of them. Rhys has to decide if he wants to join Asha and the resistance or if he wants to fight for the company that brought him to the planet. Meanwhile the refugees from Kerenza, the crew of the Alexander and Hypatia, and the survivors of Heimdall have to figure out how to get to Kerenza to save their friends and family and defeat Bei-Tech. If they can't win, they atleast have to get word to their company about what happened so Bei-Tech can be held accountable for this whole mess.

This book has it all, humor, action, romance, great characters, and some great twists and turns. I really wasn't sure how things were going to end. This is a great wrap up to the series. I honestly want to start all over again from the beginning and do it all over again and keep the books on repeat they were that good.

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