"A whole sky of different stars"
MIND=BLOWN! Yep, another mind effin' blowing experience from Ms. Kaufman and Mr. Kristoff. EEEEP, bravo!! I can't put these into words, but if I don't, my reactions will probably get lost in the paradox that the universe is correcting, which for me, means that my mind will dump some stuff into oblivion. Sorry, that's how it works.
Gaah, I'm literally squealing like a lunatic with the ending of the book. Wait.... lol. I'm composing myself. Now if you're thinking that Illuminae was effin' awesome, well, try riding the Betty Boop and get your ass to Heimdall and tell me that Gemina freakin' surpassed all expectations that Illuminae just gave you because I'm not kidding when I say Gemina is gazillion times more awesome and action-packed than Illuminae. I still love Illuminae just the same but damn, this book is a roller coaster ride of surprises.
Aside from the thrilling action-packed story, the illustrations were still freaking awesome and add to that the journal illustrations from Mari Lu, the author of Legends Series, well that has gotta count for something, and that something just spelled A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
Title: Gemina
Series: The Illuminae Files #2
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Published by: Knopf Books for Young Readers on October 2016
Genre: Sci-fi
Setting: Outer Space [Jump Station, Heimdall]
Format: Paperback, 659 pages
Copy Source: Gifted by Kathleen
Rating: 4.9 Roses
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.
The sci-fi saga that began with the breakout bestseller Illuminaecontinues on board the Jump Station Heimdall, where two new characters will confront the next wave of the BeiTech assault.
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.
Once again told through a compelling dossier of emails, IMs, classified files, transcripts, and schematics, Gemina raises the stakes of the Illuminae Files, hurling readers into an enthralling new story that will leave them breathless.
The sequel happened, I think, just minutes after the ending of Illuminae, where, on the other side of the universe, our two new main characters can be found. Hanna Donnelly and Nik Malikov is aboard the jump station, Heimdall, where the Hypatia (where Kady and Ezra is aboard) is trying to get to for safety. The book is still told in series of cctv footage, IM's, emails, and documents that are presented into court because someone's gotta go to prison for trying to wipe out Heimdall and Hypatia, right?
At first, I didn't really liked the idea that I won't be seeing Kady and Ezra in this book because I was really excited to see how they were doing right after the end of Illuminae. Progressing, I found myself liking these two new dark protagonists. Hanna Donnelly is the daughter of Heimdall's captain who happens to cross paths with our Nik Malikov, who is a part of this sort'a notorious criminal group called House of Knives (HoK), some time in the past and became her provider in the illegal drug department. Yeah, these two are pretty effed up in some ways. But anyway, they're cool. Kick-ass in their own little ways.
The romance element is just right for me. I liked that Hanna is not overboard in love to this bad boy Nik even when they were working together as kind of a team on the first part of the book. She knows that she has her doubts about her present love interest but this is unlike any other book where all the readers know that there's something brewing in there and it will happen despite everything that is on her plate. This is not that type of love story. She remains where she's ought to be and just broke free when she needed to be, so the brewing romance between Hanna and Nik is just perf.
This is a pretty long book and despite the illustrations, you'll still find that it's a freaking long story. There's just so much happening inside this long book that you will think halfway through, "How will this end?", and then you're like 100 pages before the end and you're like, "There's so much happening!! How will this end?", and yes, it's just hard to be sitting on the edge of your seat you feel like it should end right there somehow but disasters just keep coming in all directions and it's getting hard to breathe because of all that is happening. You would think that the worst part is over but no, the worst of the worst just keeps coming at you in surprisingly thrilling actions that would make your jaw drop, with a hint of a smile, in the end saying, "WHAT THE FAAA!!! THAT ENDING!!!! WATDAFAAA!!", yeah, that was my reaction, but that's not half of it. My reaction was just indescribable. *laaaugh!*
I want to talk about the book more but I can't anymore. I might slip and ruin the experience of reading the book blinded, but if you read it already, some of my thoughts can be found below, let's talk!
* * *
Reading Gemina months after Illuminae got me blinded and in a state of i-don't-remember-much-of-illuminae, so a little recap from BookSeriesRecaps will help you big time. There was so much that happened in book 1, so much spaceship names to remember and I forgot them all so it's best to have a little recap just like I did because rereading the entire book would take forever and that will suck for an excited person like me. HEHE
I guess I was expecting too much from this book because Illuminae is so grand that it demands its sequel to be grander and surprisingly, Gemina exceeded all expectations and it still made my eyes go wide not once, not twice but three effin' times! The first one was kind of predictable for me but it still made me go WTF you *bleep bleep bleep*!! The second one was like WOOOOAH there you pooh bear, you're makin' my head dizzy!! The last one was the BEST! My eyes just popped out of its socket. But fear not, they're still intact, they're just cool like that, detachable and all. So kidding aside, yes, the last part leading to the ending was just PERFECT. I don't know if I should be dismayed because of the cliffhanger but it hanged in a perfectly good state and it wrapped up, AGAIN, in a way that will make you curious and excited for the next book. Gosh, that ending was perfect.
Now, how would the next book top this masterpiece? Ugh, I can't even begin to fathom the possibilities that are brewing inside these authors' minds! GENIUS!
ALL LIFE FORMS ABOARD MY VESSEL:
THIS IS WHERE YOU SHOULD STOP IF YOU HAVEN'T READ GEMINA YET :P
BYE FISHES!
- Okay, is it just me or I just did not get the point of the whole lick-the-lollipop virus thing-y? I thought there would be a clever twist to that one, but lo, I really don't know its purpose and where it came from and why it was included in the book. That virus song is part of the book and it would make no sense if its sole participation is only to annoy the heck out of all the people riding the elevators. I am really hoping that there's more to that one. Gemina is still an unfinished story and Hanna still has some explaining to do on the next book so maybe the next installment would give light to my little issue? :D
- Ha! Ha! The author never fails to fool me!! I should've known not to get fooled by the deaths of major characters! HA! I mean, Illuminae totally got me into believing that Kady and Ezra fckn died heroes but they are ALIVE! HAHAH!!!! You got me there! And yes, I thought I won't be fooled this time around because there was this nagging feeling within me that I should be careful into believing these authors hahahah. So the first thing I watched out for was the traitors. I know there would be traitors within a 5-cm radius of our lead character, and yes, there was, and I was like, "huh! you can't fool me!", and I thought it would end there so I totally let my guard down and there goes the authors attacking me while my defense was down, and there goes me believing that Nik was dead and then Nik was dead the second time around and then Ella was dead and then Ella's dead the second time around and then Hanna was dead and then just.. I thought it was tragic that everyone died.... Literally EVERYONE. But yeah, I was fooled!!! Breaking Dawn Ptart2 all over again feels. Yes, that's how good it is, damn. These brilliant minds never cease to amaze me.
- I don't know what is happening when all hell broke loose! I have to reread and reread because there's this paradox and the universe is going to destroy itself and oh my gosh. I mean, the whole time I was reading the book, it was hell all over the place with the killings, the alien parasites, the traitors, etc. and then there's this two universe that will *poof* if our little Hanna fails, so yeah, no pressure there, highness!
- The deaths! The death tolls were seriously high in Gemina! I seriously love the X-ing part of the enemies. I mean, they were bunch of idiots! They were being played by girls and they were slowly being decimated because they're bunch of idiots.
- Halfway through the book I was wondering who analyzes the footage shown on the black pages. It is freaking creepy, the way I feel like the slimy slithering alien parasites were thinking and speaking in their minds, gosh, creeps the eff out of me! And then, at the end of the book, I just thought that maybe it was AIDAN, because it downloaded all the files just in case none of them survives to tell the tale. And I'm really guessing it was him. Gah, so creepy!
- All in all, despite the similarities, it's totally different from Illuminae. Illuminae has zombies and hackers and space airplane soldier (I don't know how to coin it) as lead characters while Gemina has alien parasites and multiverses with a martial-artist-strategist and drug dealer as protagonist. The alien parasite is not as scary as the zombies in the first book though. It is not terrifying and it did not play a much bigger role in Gemina.
If you haven't yet, you should definitely read both books or you'll miss out on all the fun the universe has been having! :D
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