Gemina by Amie Kaufman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was super cool! I never doubted the authors for a moment! There was so much amazing action, characters and I loved Heimdall! I only had a few critiques, but they didn’t affect my view of the book at all! Another novel has been added to my favorites list!
Spoilers Below
I cannot believe it took me so long to read this book. I have had it on my v.s.t.b.r. list (very soon to be read) for six months! AND! I’ve had the hardcover since Christmas. This novel was worth the wait though! It was amazing!
I was a bit sad that it didn’t focus completely on the Dream team (Kady and Ezra), but Hanna, Nic and friends were great characters too, and after a while I didn’t mind anymore. I love Hanna and although all the other characters treat her as if she is selfish, she didn’t seem that way to me, maybe a tad spoiled, but not in a Veruca Salt (from Charlie in the Chocolate Factory) kind of way.
At first I didn’t like Nic very much, but I ended up warming up to him by the end of the novel. I also really liked Ella. She was the perfect sassy little sister type (or cousin in this case) for Hanna and Nic. I loved reading all her portions, but I understand that such sass probably comes from a sad place. Another small thing I want to note in relation to Ella, was how great Amie and Jay are with foreshadowing. I remember hearing about the lysergia plague in the first novel and it’s so cool we got to learn more about it in the second.
Heimdall was a lot bigger than I first thought! When I picture those spinning station things (that appear in a large variety of space novels) they’re always a lot smaller than Heimdall. Come to think of it, I should have known Heimdall was going to be huge; spaceships have to fit thru it after all, but somehow my brain just didn’t register that. When there was a shot of Heimdall cut in half and you could see all the different floors, my mind was blown XD.
The action was amazing and so perfect! What comes to mind first was how Hanna got those Bitech guys into the airlock and Ella flushed them out. It was hilarious how Hanna thought she had done it herself until Ella told her otherwise. Speaking of killing off Bitech soldiers, I really loved the pages in the novel that slowly showed which ones were still alive; it was great for someone like me who wanted to keep count. Even though this book was super similar to Illuminae (people being chased around a spaceship), it had a different mood to it, that makes the two stories feel different.
On that topic though, I do have to address how similar these novel were in plot. Here’s a summary of both novels in one: Bad things happen to girl, girl teams up with possible but unlikely romantic interest, they stop bad guys together, romantic interest disappears but something else takes its place so girl doesn’t notice, romantic interest reappears and everyone goes home alive. There weren’t many very meaningful deaths in either novel (except maybe Byron in Illuminae) and that is why when they teased Ella’s death I was so sure it was actually going to happen. I’m on a tipping point between whether she should have survived or not, story wise only.
I also would have loved a bit more of those alien things. There were only like 10 scenes in the entire novel, where they played a pivotal role. I wanted more scenes of them attacking people (says the totally not psychopath ;P). It just feels like they were throwaway villains since all of them were killed off about 75% thru the novel before the climax even started.
Something I liked about this book, was all the new types of documents the authors incorporated. I loved how we had actual photos of places on the ships, new types of diagrams, Hanna’s diary, and like I mentioned above, the Bitech invader counter (that one was my favorite)
On the topic of Agent Rapier, I and most likely everyone else who read this book, was absolutely fooled. I was wondering throughout the entire novel how the authors were going to get rid of Jackson without any emotional ties from Hanna left over, and now that I saw their solution I agree that it was the only/best way. I’m just a bit annoyed I didn’t think of it first huff ;D.
On that topic, I think Nic and Hanna make a super cute couple! It is super adorable how they hated each other at first (I’m a super fan of love to hate romances, but only when they are done well: as is the case). I also think they just had great chemistry. I totally can’t wait to see them again in Obsidio.
Speaking of characters who cameoed in this novel, I was so happy we got to see Kady and Ezra again. I can’t wait to see them in Obsidio and I really hope they get more page time than they did in this novel.
One small thing that confused me, was when the new video transcriber was introduced. That person’s page looked a lot like how AIDAN’s code used to be. Plus, this transcriber mentioned Kady, so I assume it was AIDAN, who was somehow uploaded to Heimdell… Can anyone clear this up?
Lastly, I liked the parallel universe thing, and I think the authors did it well, but that is one of the space topics that is so hard to get right… Their version weren’t perfect, and it just seemed to rub me the wrong way a bit. I can’t really tell why… I do think they did a good job for such a hard topic though.
Oh I can’t wait for Obsidio, but I’m a bit worried on what comes after that. I know there was a novella that came out during the preordering of Aurora Rising, but I wasn’t able to get it. Is there any way to read that now? I appreciate anyone who has answers! Even so, I can’t wait for the conclusion to this series. I have to say, The Illuminae Files is officially my favorite of all time.
Overall, this was an amazing book and I recommend it to all Sci-fi lovers! I can’t wait for the next one.
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