So I bought this not knowing if I’d even want to read it. I’m pretty sure it was some form of Kindle deal. Then I saw it in hardcover at the store and I really liked the setup as I browsed through it. Then for some freakish reason I went ahead and purchased the sequel before I even cracked the cover of the first. Finally after months of these two books staring me in the face, I finally broke down and started reading.
The authors owe me big time for the loss of sleep I experienced due to the inability to put the book down. It was very fast paced and the characters made you love them.
The point at which I knew I was caught and not getting out was very early in the book somewhere between:
“… Ezra turned on the radio. For a second I thought he was looking for the right soundtrack or something….
[Ezra] I turned on the radio to maybe find us some getaway music” P8
and:
“[Kady] I knew I wasn’t going to make it anywhere without another truck. So I stole one from a Beitech crew.
Interviewer: I’m sorry, you what?
Kady Grant: I am frequently underestimated. I think it’s because I’m short” p 15
Throughout the narrator provides us with comical levity to ease the tension of the serious situation Kady and Ezra are in.
“This girl has to be some kind of spider monkey. I don’t know what those are, but I know what a spider is and I know what a monkey is, and if you found some unholy way to combine the two, that’s what I’d be watching right now.” P85
And of course we have AIDAN… do we love it or do we hate it? To be completely honest, I still can’t answer that bit there were moments when my heart cried for it:
“Before this moment, I have never wished to be something other than what I am. Never felt so keenly the lack of hands with which to touch, the lack of arms with which to hold. Why did they give me this sense of self? Why allow me the intellect by which to measure this complete inadequacy? I would rather be numb than stand here in the light of a sun that can never chase the chill away.” P417
“When the light that kisses the back of her eyes was birthed, her ancestors were not yet born. How many lives have ended in the time it took that light to reach her? How many people have loved only to have lost? How countless, the hopes that have died?” P571
I really hated AIDEN after the Copernicus incident but with lines like those, my heart started to melt. Perhaps the AI had the most character growth in the whole novel.
At the end of the book we are given the identity of the narrator and data compiler, the answer to the name Illuminae for the book, and part of the answer to Beitech’s attack on Kerenza. I’ve never been so satisfied at the end of the first book in a series. There was a great segue into the next installment but we were not left with a ridiculously absurd cliffhanger that left us screaming and pulling at our hair.
I’m trying to hold off reading the sequel for now because I know I’m just going to tear through it. The series ending doesn’t publish until next year (yes, it’s preordered) and I don’t want to be left feeling desperate for closure.
5 stars
True Blue 