Book Review: Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Patience and Silence had one beautiful daughter. And her name was Vengeance

Starting this novel I knew it was going to be a great read. But I also expected it not to live up to the hype, since the first novel is already so great. Gemina is as worthy as Illuminae and just as fun and interesting.

Book Review: Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Rating:


Title & Author: Gemina by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Genre: Science-Fiction, Adventure
Release Date: October 18 2016
Series: The Illuminae File
Publisher: Knopf Books

Synopsis

Moving to a space station at the edge of the galaxy was always going to be the death of Hanna’s social life. Nobody said it might actually get her killed.

Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy’s most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.

When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station’s wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped in two before dinner. Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands.

But relax. They’ve totally got this. They hope.

I give Gemina by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff five out of five hearts, because it was again a really intersting story. The concept of using IMs, emails, videotranscripts etc. is a working concept, which Illuminae already had proven. But Gemina is new story in the same battle. With new intersting characters and another nice surprise at the end.

My first impression was a bit dissapointing, I expected to be reading more from Kady (I did not read the back of the book). But soon noticed I did not mind, because it was still the same story, just from the other side of the travel. At the end of Illuminae Kady and the rest of the survivors from Kerenza IV were running towards Jumpstation Heimdall and in this novel we see a lot from Heimdall on the situation and how far BeiTech is willing to go to clean up the mess from Illuminae.

It gave us more interesting characters, Hanna a spoiled girl, more worried about her own happiness, her shallow friendships and boyfriend, than taking care of the people and places around her. She makes the biggest change throughout the novel. By the end she has ruined her very expensive jumpsuit and does not even care! I loved her change, because I was worried I would get annoyed with her very quick.

Nik is so much different from Hanna it helps with not getting annoyed with the spoiled girl. He is forced into this life with the cartel of Heimdall and he is not even sure he wants to be there. He deals with it by having a great sense of humor and toying with Hanna. I liked him for his struggle within the bigger struggle. It worked really well.

I can’t figure out whether I saw the biggest betrayal of the novel coming. The entire time you are made to think a certain person has betrayed the station, but it turns out to be a completely different person. I felt the betrayal coming, but I think I did not see who it would be. So maybe it is not big a deal. I rather see a twist coming, but the complete thing not clear than seeing the entire thing coming from the start.

I literally have only one point that I did not like about this novel. They introduced the concept of mirror universes by the last quarter and then start to describe the events on two universes side by side and since they are so similar it got boring really fast and the piece was to long to not bother me. And because it was also far in the end of the book, I just wanted to be done with the book and it just took me forever to get through it.

Overall I fell in love with The Illuminae Files all over again and I am looking forward to Obsidio. Which will be released March 2018, which makes me sad. The series is so good, I just want to read more and more in this universe and never let go.

Let me know what you thought of this book!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.

For now, let books enrich your life!

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