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Khanh, first of her name, mother of bunnies's Reviews > Illuminae
Illuminae (The Illuminae Files, #1)
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DNF at 30%
This book is written in epistolary format, and it has the honor of being the most annoying book I've read this year. Some people love that stuff. I ain't one of them. I love space shit. Firefly. Star Wars (yes, EVEN THE NEWER ONES). Star Trek (I loved Enterprise and I don't care who knows it). This book was just terrible and terribly formatted.
The first few chapters are entirely interviews. It was annoying as shit. It didn't endear me to the main characters, and it explain nothing. Interviews are nigh on useless for building a memorable introduction, unless it is in the hands of an extremely skilled writer. Not the case here.
So right off we have an annoying girl who's thinking about her ex bf when the invasion occurred (huh?). I have no idea where we are. I have no idea what year it is. I don't know what a Kerenza whatever is.
Bad start. And it didn't get much better. After what seems like 10000000 pages of interviews, all of a sudden we're at war (still no idea where we are, what year it is, how we got here, etc.) and then young people are getting conscripted for the military.
There are battle ships and specs of battle ships.
Do I give a fuck? No, I don't. There are cool pictures. There are snippets of things I couldn't give two shits about. What I want is a sensible story, and I didn't get that here. I got a headache instead.
By 30%, I still have no idea what the fuck is going on. I concede, my brain prefers structure. If you're into this stuff, good for you. It's just not for me.
This book is written in epistolary format, and it has the honor of being the most annoying book I've read this year. Some people love that stuff. I ain't one of them. I love space shit. Firefly. Star Wars (yes, EVEN THE NEWER ONES). Star Trek (I loved Enterprise and I don't care who knows it). This book was just terrible and terribly formatted.
The first few chapters are entirely interviews. It was annoying as shit. It didn't endear me to the main characters, and it explain nothing. Interviews are nigh on useless for building a memorable introduction, unless it is in the hands of an extremely skilled writer. Not the case here.
So right off we have an annoying girl who's thinking about her ex bf when the invasion occurred (huh?). I have no idea where we are. I have no idea what year it is. I don't know what a Kerenza whatever is.
Interviewer: Wait, you people had a subway system? I thought this settlement was illegal?WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. GOING. ON?
Ezra Mason: Chum, the Kerenza mine operated undetected for twenty years. Whole families lived there. You know how far from the Core we are, right?
Bad start. And it didn't get much better. After what seems like 10000000 pages of interviews, all of a sudden we're at war (still no idea where we are, what year it is, how we got here, etc.) and then young people are getting conscripted for the military.
Anyone showing C-grade ability or better is to be conscripted the day they hit eighteen. We need pilots. We need gunners. We need spanner monkeys and chipheads. And we need them now.Yay.
This is an unprecedented situation—to my knowledge, no stellarcorp has ever openly attacked a United Terran Authority ship. I don’t care if BeiTech Industries� litigation department has enough red tape to gift-wrap a small moon. These corporations need to learn nobody is above the law and nobody attacks a UTA vessel without consequences.
There are battle ships and specs of battle ships.
Do I give a fuck? No, I don't. There are cool pictures. There are snippets of things I couldn't give two shits about. What I want is a sensible story, and I didn't get that here. I got a headache instead.
By 30%, I still have no idea what the fuck is going on. I concede, my brain prefers structure. If you're into this stuff, good for you. It's just not for me.
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Illuminae.
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Reading Progress
May 27, 2015
– Shelved
May 27, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
Started Reading
November 10, 2015
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-50 of 122 (122 new)
message 1:
by
Katerina
(new)
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rated it 3 stars
Nov 10, 2015 08:58AM
You are not alone! I DNF it about 35% and gave the book 2 stars just because of its cool look, but the story is such a meh, and the worst thing is that I have zero feelings toward any character in this book. I just don't care would they die in a few chaps or not.
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Ugh, I was really looking forward to this. But I'm not a fan of the epistolary format either. I think it ends up functioning as a crutch for less skilled writers.
I'm sorry it didn't work for you Khanh *and that you got a headache*.On the flip side, I really enjoyed it, whatever that says about me. :)
It means you have good focus :)
I DNF'd too. I felt like I was reading a snarky textbook or an incident report. It was too much like work. I read to get away from all that, dammit! :D
Everyone loved this book but thank God I waited for your review, this sounds like a total mess!
(As a fellow trekkie, I may not have liked Enterprise but I do enjoy your reviews. XD)I've read a lot of books where is virtually no world-building in them, it's just frustrating and annoying. Another great review
Oh, man. I had really high hopes for it. Thank you for the review. You are my guardian angel!
I'm so glad I'm not the only one who had trouble getting through this. I got through roughly 20 or so pages, and then had to move on.
I definitely see your point about the beginning... But the last 50% of the book was pretty awesome. Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy! D:
I felt the same at the beggining, and the world builing was pretty much nonexistent, but by the end I did't even care, I was too involved. Better luck with the next one :)
Awh, I was really hoping this would be good!
SO I was just looking at this book... and thought hmmm maybe? Then I was like but man that sounds too technical and I can barely comprehend disney right now.... my brain is too busy for this... I will just put it on my want to read list for now...
honestly, I tried reading this today after three weeks of avoiding it, and it was like a textbook, piecing important material together. I usually lose space opera, but this just didn't work for me either
I'm one of those that did get into it and loved it. :) Sure, the formatting was a gimmick, but the story seriously rocked and had heart, rather vindicating the gimmick instead of being a gimmie.Lots of action and lots of conflict and lots of heroic stuff... but best of all, it had romance that didn't suck. I really recommend it. :)
There's hidden stuff in the after action reports, btw. :)
message 17:
by
Kay Dee (what is your storygraph name?
(last edited Nov 10, 2015 02:53PM)
(new)
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added it
Khanh (Clowns, Nightmares, and Bunnies) wrote: " Star Wars (yes, EVEN THE NEWER ONES). Star Trek (I loved Enterprise and I don't care who knows it)."this made me smile cuz i like the prequel Star Was as well. i never got into Enterprise but i did see a few episodes and didn't think it was that bad. and i don't call myself a Trekkie since i don't like the Original.
i still mourn Firefly and BSG. i get a lil ache when i think about the fact there will never be more episodes.
I got it as an ARC and I bailed on it too right about where you did.
A fellow Enterprise fan!! :D I have no shame, Enterprise was awesomeI personally really liked Illuminae but of course everyone has their own tastes. It's such an obvious thing, but since I joined goodreads I've been fascinated by how drastically differently people can read the same book, even people with generally similar tastes.
I think the point was so you didn't know what was going on. This was probably my favourite book this year, and I was looking forward to seeing you gush about it T_T Oh well, opinions are opinions :((((
Haha, it seems everyone either LOVED this, or DNFed it... Up there with my favourites for sure, not THE favourite of the year, but up there.
And I believe, from memory, Kerenza is the planet... And the Core is like the core galaxy/solar system/group of planets.
ahhh hahaha.. Not your matcha, yes?
I thought this book was brilliantly done and pretty clear what was going on.That's called a "hook" and it is why most other readers stuck with it.
It did have a great ending. :)
@Brad it really did! I was in tears!
Strangely enough, so was I! Such a beautiful tale, I didn't even mind the formatting. :)
ooo the mixed reviews make me want to read it. DNF vs the loved the ending. who is right? only one way to tell.
It's a modern epistolary novel with space battles and deranged AI, evil corps and an actually GOOD romance, for once. If you can tolerate the gimmick, the story comes out king. :)
Awwww. I'm sorry you didn't like it. I loved it. I'm glad because I know it sucks not to like a book 0_0
I'm curious now, normally one star rating from people I follow put me off. For some reason this one made me want to give it a chance.
Well, I hope you end up enjoying it if you do
Thank you! I'll probably won't be able to in the near future, I do like isaak Asimov foundation trilogy that's my only experience with space lit, I was thinking today about reading something else about the matter, maybe it's a sign. I'm iffy about the romance part so I hope it's not too important in the plot.
Only for motivation. It IS space opera. :)
I totally agree with your review. I only "finished" the book bc I had figured out the end early on.....so I just skipped through the crap I couldn't stand, which was about 75% of the book it turned out, to find out if I was right. And I was. This book was definitely not for me. It's too bad. i appreciate that the author tried to do something different with the format, etc. it just didn't work
I went out and looked at the book at B&N and read the first few chapters; it gave me a headache. I hated the script writing style. Feels like one of those fanfictions where there's little to no story telling and almost entirely dialogue.Him: Hi there.
Her: Hi.
Him: What's up?
I hate that so much. I feel like when done correctly, it could've been good, but I agree with the sentiment that only poor writers actually write this way.
I'm on page 308 and I still am so confused. I understand some parts, but most of it I'm just skimming because it's really boring.
I loved this book. I guess the format didn't work for everyone so that could throw someone off but I honestly loved it. It was new and so detailed and real. It wasn't work, it was a rollercoaster ride.
Thank you for letting me know... glad I came across your review, because I definitely hate that form of writing as well.
You got further than I did. Really rather annoyed I wasted money on this and just goes to show that you should not blinded by a sea of good reviews.
I personally struggled through the first 100 pages or so, but I'm hooked and literally haven't put it down today. If you can persist in the beginning, it gets better :)
Jake wrote: "I personally struggled through the first 100 pages or so, but I'm hooked and literally haven't put it down today. If you can persist in the beginning, it gets better :)"ETA - for some reason I thought this was the review for The 100.
Yes, Illuminae DEFINITELY got better for me, especially once I passed the 250 page mark.
The only person I know who also gave 1 star. I pushed through hoping it would get better, but it got more boring and more confusing. I hated it and it took me forever to read.
Ok, I know I'm late to this, but I'm almost 400 pages in and I am trying soooo hard to just finish it... I really wanted to love it, but nope.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only person who hated this book. I read 400 pages and just didn't care enough about anyone in the story to finish it.
Glad to know it wasn't only me having a hard time reading this book.
it's 2575. it says so on the synopsis :D
just continue omg omgomgi was kinda bored at the beginning. BUT IT WAS AWESOME LIKE SO AWESOME UNTIL THE END.
