Gemina

4.5 Stars! Gemina was a fantastic continuation of The Illuminae Files with an intriguing storyline and characters, both new and old, that you can’t help but root for. Hanna, the daughter of the station captain, has little to look forward to on Jump Station Heimdall so the upcoming celebration for Terra Day is an event she has been eagerly anticipating. Before she can join the festivities she makes a pitstop to pick up some party favors for her friends from Nik, a member of a notorious crime family living on Heimdall. Little do Hanna and Nik know that their meeting saved their lives when a BeiTech assault team invades the station to prevent the arrival of Kady Grant and the Hypatia. Now Hanna and Nik must work together to evade the BeiTech forces while looking for a way to save everyone on Heimdall along with everyone aboard the Hypatia. Hanna is initially presented as the spoiled daughter of the station captain who doesn’t have a care in the world. Over time we learn there’s much more to Hanna than she presents to the world. Her father’s idea of fun was for the two of them to play war strategy games and as a result Hanna is quite skilled in the art of war. Nik is presented as the nephew of Heimdall’s crime lord who has a reputation for being able to get anything you want. Despite coming from opposing sides of the social spectrum, Hanna and Nik have a good friendship that at times is full of banter and flirting. The two work well together in the fight against BeiTech and I enjoyed how much others would underestimate Hanna. My favorite new character introduced is without a doubt Ella, Nik’s cousin and hacker extraordinaire. We also see the return of some of the characters that survived Illuminae and it was great to see them again and to learn how they fit into this storyline. In Gemina we start to learn more about the motives of BeiTech and just how far those in charge will go to cover up their agenda. The BeiTech assault team that arrives on Heimdall definitely ups the suspense factor a bit compared to Illuminae as now the enemy is in the same place as our characters while previously they were more off-page. Several of the events that occur on Heimdall surprised me in their outcomes which was a nice change from a lot of books that tend to go the easier route. The unique format of this book is by far one of my favorite aspects of this series. Having the story be told through a series of documents is something I had never encountered prior to reading Illuminae. At times throughout the story you have to turn the book itself in order to read it which definitely makes for a different reading experience. There were a few sections that were difficult to read, in particular the whisperNET IM logs as those are on a gray background with black text. Those sections did slow me down a bit as I had to read them more carefully as I had difficulty seeing the text. I enjoyed Gemina almost as much as Illuminae and I’m highly anticipating picking up the final book Obsidio. Gemina does get off to a somewhat slower start than Illuminae but once the action picks up it never slows down. I highly recommend this series for anyone looking for a unique sci-fi series.

I ordered this book by mistake because someone gave me the book 1 Illuminae on Spanish and my inner self was driving crazy on having a trilogy in 2 different languages... but I need to recommend everyone to read it in english! The jokes will always be better in the original language, and the chemistry of the characters is beyond awesome. It's one of the first Sci-fi books that has been able to trap me in the last 3 years.

This is one of those books I read on one day and that is quite something, considering the page count is about 660. I just was not able to put it down, it was just too good. I mean, yes, it was not easy at times to get your hopes up when things went well only to be politely reminded by the authors that this is not the way it works. But still I had to keep going and going and going. This book was one of my most anticipated reads this year, if not the one I wanted to get my hands on the most. I already said it about Illuminae, but the style of the book again is one of the things I loved the most. Although I can’t really say that because I can’t chose which aspect is the best really. I can understand why this is not for everyone yet I am grateful that not every book is the same and only has chapters named after the person that is telling the story or numbers (This is a totally acceptable way to do it but I still crave for chapter titles deep down in my heart). I was actually always looking forward to finish the surveillance camera parts as fast as possible to enjoy the other styles of telling the story again. Especially the graphics and illustrations of the happenings outside the station which brings me to something that I will forever cherish about the books. I know that I have some advantages over other readers when it comes to the physic parts of the book as I have a degree in Physics. Nevertheless, I think the authors did an amazing job in waving theoretical physics into a story for young readers although I can admit it can be a bit much when you are not familiar with the topic at all. I am happy that readers can learn about the multiverse theory, wormholes and more fun facts about space. I get enthusiastic when reading it or writing about it, so I just better stop now, but it’s so cool. Apart from the realistic descriptions of space, I find the plot to very believable, especially because the main characters of the story don’t get everything right and have to fight very hard to get out of situations (alive). And they have to deal with losses and uncertainty which I think they do very realistically in certain aspects which is first and foremost the language. I realize that all the blacked out words can be a little annoying sometimes, especially when you can’t figure them out (well, I’m not native speaker and don’t know all the swear words) but to me they are just so much more genuine and comparable to real life conversations. Ok, maybe not the swear words, but in general the way the characters speak and act feels way more normal, I mean, how often do you have a conversation where you don’t find the perfect words at the first try or it takes some time to finish a thought and speak it out loud. But I actually wanted to talk about the plot. The fact that it is SciFi with real life physics, inventions and problems (personal ones, not that it happens so regularly being ambushed by elite soldiers) is a perfect combination for my taste. Having grown up with Star Trek and so on, the story just transports me back to those years and I just wish to go explore the universe on a spaceship or a space station (and I want to see a wormhole, for real). All in all, this book was somehow too much for me. After the last sentence I had so many feelings, I was happy to be finished as I knew the ending but the way there was also very exhausting because getting your hopes up and all just to have them crushed. But the worst feeling was the fact that now I have to wait another year (!!!!!) to read the next one which is making me quite sad. I knew before reading that 660 pages will not be enough and I was right, I want more, right now, I need the next book. What’s left to say?!

Well, wow! I read Illuminae a few months ago and I thought it was an impressive work overall, even if I didn't completely love it as most people seem to do. But this book... well, it was absolutely mind-blowing. I still had Illuminae quite vivid in my mind, so I was able to jump right into the sequel and be more comfortable with a genre I usually never read. The story immediately grabbed me and from the start I never wanted to put this book down. The plot was amazing: it was even more fast-paced than in the first book, and the explanation behind the title really blew my mind. Crazy, but great. I also really liked the drawings. In the first book, I enjoyed the pages from Kady's journal because they made her more relatable and more alive, and I loved that in Gemina something similar happened with Hanna's drawings. They were beautifully done, but they also gave a true feeling of who she was, and made her all the more real to me. Talking about the characters, I really liked all of them. In Illuminae I wasn't completely sold on Kady and Ezra, but in this book I was drawn to both Hanna and Nik. They were badass and realistic at the same times, and their relationship, even if a little cliché, was fun. I also really loved Ella, Nik's cousin, who despite her disability was probably the most badass of them all. She was utterly fantastic! I can't wait for the third book.

4.5 stars for the corner. Otherwise the book is great :)