Illuminae

In all honesty,  I figured this would take me a while to finish- all 600 pages of this tome. Not so. Oh my goodness, this was a book like no other I have read and I have read a lot. First- if you decide to read it you must buy a physical copy. NO electronic or audio will do because this book is a work of art. It is the story of Kady and Ezra, a couple who have just broken up as their world is attacked. They are forced to flee to several ships (this is a space tale) and find themselves alone with only each other left. But alas, they are on separate ships. Ezra is commissioned to become a fighter pilot and Kady hides her computer hacking skills from the powers that be, but she is keeping an eye on the command. She doesn't like what she sees. When one of the ships is fired on by their own and the disaster is covered up, Kady uses her hacking skills to find out what is going on. And none of it is pretty. I could go on and on about the terrible things that happen and how Kady and Ezra fight to save others, but you will get to that on your own. It's the style of this book that is spectacular. It is told in memos, blogs, computer conversations. It is told in concrete poetry from an unreliable narrator. It is told in reports and schematics and illustrations. Just gorgeous and clever. I really couldn't put this down. And when I am done typing, will order book two. My only complaint is some of the gray writing on the black pages was almost impossible to read- could be due to my old eyes but that did give me a bit of frustration as I didn't want to miss a word. I can't imagine the planning that must have gone into the creation of this book- kudos to the authors Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. It isn't easy to create something so new and innovative in the book world, but they blew the doors off this one. So try something new and give it a go. Happy reading my friends!