Illuminae, the
first book in a science fiction series, begins in the year 2575 on a tiny
planet that is being invaded. The story follows Kady, a teenage girl, through
their evacuation from the planet and space travel as they try to make it to
safety. It was presented as a series of reports, transcripts, diary entries and
visual poetry.
I found this story hard to get into, primarily because of
the format. The multiple methods of telling the story felt disjointed and
choppy. I guess I have a ‘words
only’ preference while reading books. I also found the blacking out of ‘offensive’
words distracting. Early on in the book, it is explained that any profanity
would be blacked out because the person reading the report didn’t want to see
it. It would have been more effective to simply avoid using the offending words
in the dialogue as in most cases they seemed to be added just for the sake of
showing that they were being blacked out.
After completing the book, I found I did care about the
characters and want to know how their story ends in subsequent books, but I’m
hoping the format changes to flow more smoothly.
Overall, I’d give the story a 4/5, but the format a 2/5.
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