5 Big Problems With ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

I recently read *ILLUMINAE by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. You may have already heard of this book, as everyone seems to be RAVING about it. But I thought I should just give you my thoughts, and a little caution before you decide to drop the big bucks on this one.

THE 5 BIG PROBLEMS WITH ILLUMINAE
 by Andye


1. The cover.

Ok, yeah. The cover is freaking amazing. The problem, though, is that when you take off the dust-jacket, the naked book is JUST AS AMAZING. Or maybe more amazing, I don't even know. So, what am I supposed to do? Display it with the jacket on? Or off? How am I supposed to pick? Switch it back and forth every other day? And where do I put the jacket on the off days? It's going to get crinkled! So now I have to buy TWO copies, just so I don't have to stress out about this. Rude, Random House. Rude.

2. People are bothering me about it. 

This goes along with problem #1. I took Illuminae with me to my son's baseball game so I could read in-between innings, but when people saw the cover, and all the writing and scribbles and the big CLASSIFIED stamp and all the cool pages, they kept TALKING TO ME ABOUT IT. I wanted to scream, "NO. REALLY. I BROUGHT THIS HERE SO THAT I COULD TALK TO YOU. JUST KEEP INTERRUPTING. PLEASE."  Seriously, the questions went on and on. Even MEN were asking me about it! So, don't buy this book unless you want people to talk to you, because people are incredibly nosy.

3. The cussing is blacked out.

You may think this is a good thing. To shield your virgin eyes from the filth. But all it does is make you sit there and try to figure out which foul word goes in the blank. It's like a CUSSING QUIZ. I mean, I tried all kinds of combinations, and there are a couple I still can't figure out. I thought my bad language vocabulary was pretty extensive, but now I have to go look up bad words just to see what fits. How is that ok?

4. It's deceptively big.

I tried to tell someone that I read a 600 page book, but then she looked at it an saw all the pages were made up of emails, IMs, and reports, and some of them just had drawings, or computer scribbles, or propeganda "pamphlets", and she said it didn't count. I mean, she took the book from me and started devouring it because it was "so cool" but somehow it doesn't count as 600 pages? Pretentious.

5. It was gross.

There are things that happen in this book that will make you want to gouge out your eyes. For instance: crazy people gouging out other people's eyes. This book gave me nightmares, and I was NOT expecting that. There could've at least been a warning that this book was going to be CREEPY sometimes. The scariest part is that it was so realistic. I can definitely see something like this happening for real, and now I'm scarred for life. Also scared for life.

STOPLOOKINGATMESTOPLOOKINGATME

Ok, so yes, this was maybe the coolest book I've ever read. And yes, I loved the way the events unfolded and revealed things. And yes, the romance was great . . . and heartbreaking. But I just don't know if I should be OK with it considering all the things I've listed above. Plus I just don't know what to think about AIDAN and that freaks me out! I mean, a super computer that basically can do whatever it (he) wants to you? This could seriously happen in real life, people! WHO WANTS TO THINK ABOUT THAT?

So in short, I cannot recommend this book for people who are wimps, are indecisive, don't like talking to people, like cussing, don't want to think about the future, or hate cool things. The rest of you, read at your own risk.

ILLUMINAE
The Illuminae Files #1
by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Hardcover: 608 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers; 1St Edition edition (October 20, 2015)
Language: English
Goodreads | Amazon

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 one of the 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.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

*All pics and thoughts are from the special edition ARC and may change in the final copy.

---