Title: Iluminae (The Illuminae Files #1)
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Rating: ★★★

Well, I did it. I made it through this. This book had a lot of potential for me, but sadly it fell short. Had it not been written the way it did I probably would have really like it, but unfortunately I have never been a fan of epistolary novels and Illuminae was no exception.

I’m a huge fan of science fiction/space opera books so no one is more disappointed than me that I didn’t like this as much as I wished I did. While I don’t mind the inclusion of documents in stories, I don’t enjoy reading entire books comprised of only documents. It was too hard in the beginning to get used to the format and to try to figure out the plot and what was happening. I also never really connected with any of the characters, which was a shame, because I think if it had been written differently I would have really liked Kady. She seemed strong, brave, and intelligent and I would have liked to have read parts of the story told from her perspective. The storyline, while confusing at first, got easier to follow and more interesting as the book went on, but I still couldn’t get over the formatting. I wish the book had been written with the documentation bits interspersed between chapters of standard narration. It would have been easier to read and follow, I would have been able to connect with and care about the characters more, and I the book would have been a bigger hit with me.