Reviews tagging 'Death'

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff

122 reviews

bebidocrimes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.5

If the page count wasn't so intimidating, I could see this having had a craze in my school. Or maybe I think spaceships are cooler than others do. The unique formatting feels like a cute gimmick until occasionally It's Not and it's very very intentional and really lends more impact to the story. My small gripes are generally just because it's YA and can be forgiven.

What omnipotent AI is gonna fall in love(?) with a random 17-year-old just because she can code? Who's still using emoticons when texting your savior while you hide from a pack of crazed murderers? Why are the characters putting more emphasis on losing the (ex-)boyfriend and not HER LITERAL ACTUAL MOM??

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Physical abuse, Medical content, and Alcohol

m_petranoff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

4.0

A riveting epistolary novel set in the space-faring future, it feels both novel and firmly rooted in the mid-2010's. Some aesthetics and jargon is now dated and some plot points feel a bit cheesy, but if you're a fan of fast-paced science fiction horror with everything except the aliens, this is a romp. While I had my complaints at points and didn't love some of the narrative voices, none of that stopped me from staying up too late to finish it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Death of parent, and War

luna_noble's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Sexual content, Violence, Grief, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

booksandbabble's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Grief and Death of parent

peachmoni's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Gore, Suicide, Blood, Murder, and War

Minor: Cursing, Drug use, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

lawbooks600's review against another edition

adventurous 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? No

4.0

Representation: Asian character
Score: Eight out of ten.

I enjoyed The Aurora Cycle from these authors so I decided to give The Illuminae Files a shot to see if it lives up to my expectations. I picked up the first instalment in the series, Illuminae, and glanced at the blurb, making it seem intriguing. When I closed the final page, it was enjoyable, and made me hope that the next part of the series, Gemina, will be of the same quality, if not better.

It starts with the first people I see, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason, living on a planet which is a company colony until another company destroyed it, killing everyone on there save for a few thousand who hopped on three spaceships to escape from the apocalypse. However, the situation only worsens as an epidemic plagues the ship, its AI, AIDAN, goes rogue, and BeiTech spaceships are still on the hunt to eviscerate the remaining citizens of the colony planet. I don't even know where to begin with Illuminae. But I'll try. For a book whose page count is one page shy of 600, it's fast-paced and enthralling, which ties in to the writing style. Illuminae isn't a book. It's more of a collection of files, including surveillance footage, images of spaceships, Wikipedia-like pages, artwork and DMs among other miscellanies. I liked the realistic teenage dialogue, but not the characters themselves. Finally! Teenagers in Illuminae don't speak like philosophers. They're more accurate to real-life youth. AIDAN developed his character as he turns from a ship commander to a human-like being, which isn't that original but I'll let the authors get away with it, which made me like him the most. I couldn't relate to Kady and Ezra, though. The composition kept making me turn its pages because I never know what I would get on the next page since it's not a predictable wall of text. It could be anything. The conclusion is nail-biting as Kady and AIDAN are the only survivors of the plague, and take down a BeiTech ship, the Lincoln, with the Alexander before escaping to a faraway space station named the Heimdall. There's also a cliffhanger. Wow.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, Grief, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Full trigger warnings: Explosions, military violence and war themes, mass death, death of people and a parent in the past, blood, grief and loss depiction, physical assault and injury, gun violence, epidemic, dead bodies

happysami's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• 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: Body horror, Death, Gore, and War

alphabet_soup_books's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Terminal illness, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Ableism, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Alcohol

esouthwest's review against another edition

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

4.75

This almost got a perfect rating, but there was just a couple things that threw me off for that. Holy shit, what a good book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Suicide, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

The way he lived felt just a little too perfect for me, although I guess it makes sense.

mysticserenity's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny sad 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Child death, Death, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Violence, Grief, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic