Reviews tagging 'Confinement'

Illuminae by Jay Kristoff, Amie Kaufman

26 reviews

raventheclaw19's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Illuminae was a fantastic book and I can’t wait to read the rest of the series. I first read the Aurora Cycle trilogy, and I loved it so much that I had to read the rest of Kristoff’s and Kaufman’s works. And boy, am I having a time!
Illuminae is a very YA-friendly sci-fi mystery/thriller (I know it’s not tagged as a thriller, but it is) with minimal swearing (“censored on reports”), and only vague references to sex (jokes about “your sister” and references to acts done prior to the events of the story). 
Take it from someone who normally hates thrillers, this book is good. Admittedly, there’s a lot of death and blood (only a few disturbingly gory parts, though), so do keep that in mind, but I didn’t find it too uncomfortable and I’m normally a very squeamish person. 
Can’t wait for the next book! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Blood, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Gore, and Death of parent

Minor: Confinement, Cannibalism, Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, and Self harm

I know it’s a lot of content warnings, so do proceed with caution. I’m not very good with blood/gore, but I only had a couple small parts (see below) that made me uncomfortable. There’s a lot of death, but it’s not vividly gory until about 45% (I think) into the book

when they enter the quarantine bay and 70% through

when the remaining Alexander survivors escape the ship

. For the most part, they just say “there’s blood/dead bodies/screams in the distance” but they don’t go into great detail with every mention of violence.

childoflight's review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Abandonment, Violence, Grief, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Death of parent, Police brutality, Gun violence, Confinement, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Minor: Child death and Suicidal thoughts

marsh_mall0w's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gore, Grief, War, Pandemic/Epidemic, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Violence

Moderate: Child death, Medical content, Police brutality, Torture, Vomit, and Colonisation

Minor: Medical trauma, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Fire/Fire injury

sunnythesassy's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Genocide, Death of parent, Death, Body horror, Violence, Terminal illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Gore, Gaslighting, Confinement, War, Vomit, Blood, Grief, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Colonisation

Minor: Abandonment and Child abuse

alexa's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

2.75

so. i have been collecting some thoughts throughout this whole thing and they might not be especially cohesive, but that's ok, i was always more of a bullet list person.
i like the format of this, it was really interesting and fun, even if limited the amount of what you can learn about the world. some things were weirdly the same considering we're 500 years in the future, as i already expressed.
it might be just me, but the romantic drama between 2 high school seniors was the least interesting part of this thing, i found it irrelevant and at time or two a little bit annoying, but i suppose that's 17/18yo allo people for you. dunno, never been there.
honestly in general, i did not feel much attached to or interested in the characters beyond like a superficial level.
the ai in this was so weirdly melodramatic and rambling aside from its twisted logic which i'm assuming comes from the damage sustained.
in the q&a at the end, the authors mentioned talking with psychiatrists as part of the research that went into this and it does not sound very inspiring, considering the level and amount of demonization of people struggling with psychosis is staggering and infuriating, i think it was actually my biggest problem with this book.
the authors were quite good at creating tension and making one need to read on to know what happens next, i'll give them that.
however, i'm not entirely sure about continuing the series. it's likely i will i guess? not if they continue the ableism though, i'm not gonna stand for that

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Blood, Grief, Murder, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and War

Moderate: Death of parent, Child death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Body horror, and Confinement

trs01's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

The writing in this book feels like a rough draft. The authors don't know how to handle serious situations, and the banter and humor were poorly timely and off-putting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, War, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, Violence, Suicidal thoughts, Genocide, Death, Confinement, Gore, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Fire/Fire injury, Chronic illness, Body horror, Blood, Murder, Vomit, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Xenophobia, Racism, and Sexism

ran_sophia's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

The whole book was an excellent read for me and the plot twists are well placed.  Even though the book has an untraditional format and the story is told through a lot of different document formats, I got started quite quickly and understanding the plot wasn't a problem.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Blood, Gore, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Panic attacks/disorders, and Grief

Minor: Child abuse and Death of parent

maeverose's review against another edition

Before I get to the review, if you were unaware, Jay Kristoff is racist and antisemitic, so if you wanna read this or any of his other books maybe buy them used.

I’m sorry but I don’t understand how people like this book. If you do, that’s great but wow it was so annoying to me. It literally took me over a year to get halfway through before I decided I couldn’t do it anymore.

Every character except Kady acted the exact same. They all acted like 15 year old boys who made misogynistic jokes and took nothing seriously.

Even the AI talks like a teenager’s edgy poetry

They were in an extremely dangerous and terrifying situation, literally watching people die in brutal ways, and they were cracking jokes as if everything was fine. The romance was cringey and felt completely out of place and unnecessary in this story. I have no idea why Kady liked Ezra. I’m 100% convinced that the only part Amie Kaufman got to write was Kady’s character and her scenes. The entire tone of this book was so off, it’s primarily focused on the romance, but there’s all of this extremely messed up stuff going on in the background that seems to be pretty urgent and important, but nobody is focusing on it as much as they should? And they’re cracking stupid jokes at the same time? 

Omg and can we talk about Ezra literally calling women ‘fems’..? You cannot convince me a woman wrote that.

The one thing I did like was the epistolary format of it. This could’ve been such a cool story if it had been written by different authors, had no romance, and got rid of the out-of-place humor. (And was adult instead of YA..)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Child death, Stalking, Confinement, Gore, Mental illness, Murder, and Grief

A pandemic, A virus that makes people homicidal

sarahsbooklife's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Body horror, Blood, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, War, Genocide, Death, Violence, Gore, Death of parent, and Gun violence

Moderate: Gaslighting, Confinement, Mental illness, Death of parent, Child death, Medical trauma, and Medical content

Minor: Cursing, Confinement, Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Colonisation, and Fire/Fire injury

ashleereadsbooks692's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Confinement, Cursing, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Self harm, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Violence, Terminal illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Death of parent, and Gaslighting