Why I read it: My buddy Sirius reviewed this book at Dear Author – I was intrigued so I requested it from the library.

What it’s about: (from Goodreads) This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

What worked for me (and what didn’t): The blurb above really tells readers all they need to know going into the story. I think it’s a book that is best experienced with little expectation (other than a hopeful, satisfying ending of course!) so I don’t plan to talk much about the plot here. It kept me guessing right up until the end, there were numerous twists and turns I wasn’t expecting even though (because while Sirius told me the ending was upbeat I still got nervous) I peeked at the end.

This is a book which is an immersive experience and I don’t think it would translate well to a digital format (except maybe a PDF read on a tablet as there are images contained in the text) and it would be even worse on audio IMO. It’s a big book. It has 599 pages but readers ought not feel intimidated by the size of it. It’s actually a very quick read. Some pages have very few words on them and other pages are actually left intentionally blank (another reason digital reading is not recommended – I’d be worried my reader was borked but in a print book, the effect is obvious). I read it over four or five nights – so it actually reads closer to a 350 page “regular” book IMO.

The format is incredible. It’s also hard to describe so I’ve put in some spoiler-free pictures to show readers the kind of thing they can expect in the text. The story is told (as promised by the blurb) as a dossier which has been compiled by the “Illuminae Group” and submitted to “Executive Director Frobisher”. The dossier has cobbled together from various records including; interviews, instant messaging chats, memos, public announcements, schematics, diagrams and some beautifully poetic word pictures and, from time to time, includes some notes from the Illuminae Group as well. Frankly, it’s brilliant. The entire concept of it and its execution is wonderful. The publisher translated the author’s vision so well here. This is a book that stands apart from the crowd simply because of the way the story is told.

Black double page spread, with words in various orientations depicting frenetic confused battle radio messages. Type is in white and various shades of gray.

The main character is Kady Grant, who begins the story aged 17. She is quite literally the heroine of the piece. Ezra plays a crucial part but it is Kady who shines the most. In terms of girl power, this makes me very very happy.

What else? The story appeals to a broad range of readers – my 13 year old son read it and loved it too.

The death count is very high – think Game of Thrones high – and the authors cleverly made me care about many of those who were destined to embrace the void but the story seemed all the more realistic because of it. (Of course, “realistic” is perhaps a poor choice of words – the conceit of the book is that an inexperienced 17 year old girl can prevail where very experienced technicians cannot but I was prepared to go with it.)

It’s a book we both highly recommend – while I’ve included buy links at the bottom of this post like I usually do, it’s available in the library (which is where I got it) and so it doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise. Equally, the way this book is made and the method the authors used to tell the story? It would make a great gift. Just saying.

According to The Book Depository’s entry, the book is being made into a movie (yay!). It will be a completely different experience and obviously told in a different way than the book, but it is a cracker of a story so I can see it doing really well at the box office. Book 2 of the Illuminae Files, Gemina, comes out in October this year.