06 | July | 2016 | socially awkward bookworm.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff
2.5 out of 5 stars.

“Perhaps bravery is simply the face humanity wraps around its collective madness.”

Goodreads Description: 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 an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit. But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Illuminae looked and sounded so awesome when I first heard about it. I kept seeing rave review after rave review. No doubt it got so much hype and still does. I finally picked it up after it sat on my shelves since release day. Much to my surprise it was not that good. What happened to all the awesome things I was hearing about it? All the amazing things? I found it to be the exact opposite of what everyone was saying. I was totally underwhelmed and so bored the majority of the time.

The layout of the book was cool at times, but it was also annoying as well. I didn’t really care for Kady that much. She was really annoying throughout the book. I did really like Ezra. He was one of the main reasons that kept me reading. I wanted to see what happened with him and his journey through trying to survive on the ship. I also kept on reading because of Aidan. Aidan was the most interesting part of the book. I didn’t care about the plague and thought that was boring. Maybe if they talked more about it and the people infected then it could have been a lot more interesting.

This will be a short review, because I’m not sure what else to say. I didn’t love it and it was just an okay read for me. The last 100 or so pages were good, but the 500 pages before that were just “meh”. I wanted to love it so much like everyone else does. I think I just had my expectations set way too high for this one. I didn’t really see any negative reviews about this book before reading it, so I was expecting something epic and it was not. The ending of the book did make me want to possibly check out the next book in the series, but I am not in any rush to get my hands on it and read it though.

Illumine even put my cat to sleep…