Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1) in 2016 Hub Reading Challenge

Feb 14, 2016 Amy! rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, sci-fi, favorites, audiobook, diverse-characters, space, interesting-heroines, robots, shipwreck, awesome

Oh man, you guys. This book is AMAZING. I loved it the second time around, and I'm glad I've read it both in print and audio. Both formats are really well done, and there are things in both of them that you can't get from the other, and man, oh, man, this book is just so engaging and gut wrenching and totally wonderful.

Previously read: 02/14/2016 - Holy moly! This book was SO GOOD. I really enjoyed the full cast recording of the audiobook; it really brought the story to life. And the story itse ...more

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Nov 12, 2015 Anna Chappell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks

Loved the audio version so much I'm going to reread immediately in print. The concept is great, the story is great, the acting is great, it's just great. An awesome sci-fi addition!

Added: Read the print version too and it's amazing in a different way. Can't recommend both enough! ...more

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Apr 05, 2016 Kyna rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Simply put, this book rocked my little world. Here are a few reasons why... (INCLUDES COLORFUL LANGUAGE)
1. It's unique. The whole book is a collection of survellance, conversations, IMs, and letters collected to describe an incident.
2. The language cracked my shit up. Even though it's blacked out, the curses and crude threats really made me laugh.
3. The Audiobooks is a full cast with sound effecrs.. pew pew
4. It reminded me of Firefly
5. I like how Katie is smart, capable, sarcastic, and takes ...more

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Feb 01, 2016 Stephany rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2016

I have nothing bad to say about this book. I listed to it on audio and if you have read it but not listened to it, go listen to it now. It is very well done with a full cast and lots of sound effects. It makes you feel like you are actually reviewing footage and files from a real event. If you haven't read it or listened to it yet, then stop reading this review. Skip the synopsis and just go start the book. Trust me on this, it will make the book much more compelling if you don't know what is go I have nothing bad to say about this book. I listed to it on audio and if you have read it but not listened to it, go listen to it now. It is very well done with a full cast and lots of sound effects. It makes you feel like you are actually reviewing footage and files from a real event. If you haven't read it or listened to it yet, then stop reading this review. Skip the synopsis and just go start the book. Trust me on this, it will make the book much more compelling if you don't know what is going on. I checked out the book without knowing what is going on. I was a little confused at first but I couldn't stop listening because I had to know what happened next.
For those who insist on reading the reviews here is what I have to say about the book. Warning the next part is partially spoilers.
(view spoiler) ...more

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Mar 01, 2016 Charlos rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, science-fiction, young-adult, z_2016-hub-reading-challenge

Considering the more experimental layout of the book, I was interested to see how they would carry this off in audiobook format. Surprisingly it comes off well: they use certain sound effect tricks (I'm not fluent enough in such things to go into more detail) to give it nuances that the book doesn't have, so it still is a satisfying story. I will admit I did pull a copy of the book off the shelf to look at the schematics of the ships, but it was more out of curiosity than necessity. The ensemble ...more

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Oct 27, 2015 Ellie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This is a tough competitor with "I'll Give You the Sun" for my favorite book of 2015. I LOVED every minute of it. I love the mixed media component, I love the multiple points of view, and I love that I had to literally put the book down and take a break after it broke my heart about 3/4ths of the way through. If it weren't for that moment, I probably would have read it in a single day because of the way it drew me in. SO GOOD!! ...more

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Mar 29, 2016 Lucie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, audiobooks

Kady and Ezra have just broken up when BeiTech, a massive corporation, attacks their home planet of Kerenza for illegal mining. Thousands of people are killed and the rest of the population must flee through space to the nearest jump station, including our love-tormented teens. What follows is a Firefly-ish teen hacker thriller with some unexpected twists, a little humor and just enough raunch to be fun (but still YA). It took a little while for me to get into the plot and Kady's character, but ...more

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Dec 10, 2015 Ms. Pansulla rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010s, australian-authors, sci-fi, series, action-adventure, teens-top-ten-nominee

Oh, had you been wishing for a YA series that brought back all those Battlestar Galactica, space opera feels? Yeah, me too! Here it is! Told through "supporting documents" i.e. a *lot* of chat transcripts, plus some perfectly atmospheric artwork, this reads way, way faster than the 500+ page count might suggest, and is chock-full of action and a gruesome, survivalist brutality that happens so fast it sometimes barely registers (that may have been the pace I was reading at, actually, so be advise ...more

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Feb 11, 2016 Julie Trapp rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Really not a good book. Difficult to plow through the format - who cares about 8 pages of names? Did the author just go to the phone book and copy and paste - with pictures? This book was about Kady & Ezra & the aftermath of their planet being bombed by a megacorporation. They have to survive and stop a plague caused by a bioweapon. Interviews, e-mails, etc is the format with all of the crude language blacked out. The audio did not improve the story line, tho it was easier to follow.

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Nov 26, 2015 Heydi Smith rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: young-adult, scifi-fantasy, dystopian

This novel is structured, very uniquely, with messenger conversations, ship logs, visual interpretations, and very little actual vocal conversation. Much of it is told from the ships point of view or from what can be seen from the cameras on the ships.

Keep reading, even if this seems weird. It's very worth it to get to the end. ...more

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