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Gemina (The Illuminae Files, #2)

Amie Kaufman,

Jay Kristoff

Start date: July 1, 2020

Finish date: July 31, 2020

Discussion: Book of the Month

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What Members Thought

Nov 12, 2016 Tammie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: space-opera, young-adult, trilogy, favorites, series-completed, sci-fi, owned-hard-cover

Gemina was one of the books I was most excited about reading this year. It starts not long after Illuminae ends, while the Hypatia is on its way to the space station Heimdall. And wow, I seriously underestimated Gemina in the beginning! It started off slow and I didn't like the main characters, but over the course of the book they ended up growing on me a lot.

Hanna is the station commander’s daughter who lies to him and sneaks around behind his back, doing a lot of things she shouldn't be doing Gemina was one of the books I was most excited about reading this year. It starts not long after Illuminae ends, while the Hypatia is on its way to the space station Heimdall. And wow, I seriously underestimated Gemina in the beginning! It started off slow and I didn't like the main characters, but over the course of the book they ended up growing on me a lot.

Hanna is the station commander’s daughter who lies to him and sneaks around behind his back, doing a lot of things she shouldn't be doing, and seems really self-absorbed at first. On top of that, at the beginning of the book she is setting up a deal to buy drugs for a party. That brings us to Nik, who is her drug dealer and belongs to a family of crime lords. Nik constantly hits on Hanna, and I'll be honest, it got annoying, and Hanna is not interested because she has a dreamy boyfriend.

After meeting these two I thought it was going to be a really long, disappointing read. But people can redeem themselves, and that's what happens in this book. We find out that there is more to Hanna than we thought. The one problem I have with this is that instead of feeling like I was finding out more about Hanna, it almost seemed like she was replaced by a different character. I think if we had gotten more backstory on her habits and talents in the beginning and less focus on things like what to buy to wear to the party and how she was going to sneak off with her boyfriend, that wouldn't have been the case.

We also eventually get Nik's whole story and despite his family, he doesn't end up being a thug the way he seemed in the beginning. Which also may be a stretch, but I was willing to go with it because it made him likable. But really, guys that come from crime lord families, have been to prison, and have tattoos all over them, generally don't look as adorably cute as the one Hanna drew in her journal. We are also introduced to Nik's cousin Ella and she ended up being my favorite character in the book. She is essentially the hero of the book, because not much would have been possible without her computer hacking skills.

In Illuminae we got zombies on a space ship (along with the creepy AI AIDAN), and there was a lot of tension in that book with all the zombies lurking about. In Gemina we get aliens on a space station. While there were a few tense scenes in this book with the alien creatures popping up now and then, it was a little disappointing in that aspect as they are mostly relegated to being a background annoyance throughout a good portion of the book. Unlike the zombies who had a more menacing presence in Illuminae. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it, but just not quite as much as Illuminae.

Along with the alien creatures, there is also a special ops team deployed by BeiTech who have taken over the station. Who, by the way, are also no match for AIDAN in the insanely creepy department. I thought most of the special ops team was a bit too immature to be adults. I don't see a real special ops team saying or doing some of the things these said and did, but it was a lot of fun watching these folks (view spoiler). One other thing is, I thought most of the guys in the book (not just the ones on the special ops team) all seemed too alike. There wasn't a lot to distinguish between personalities. And they were always using sexual innuendos which got old.

Those small complaints aside, this book kept me glued to it. It continued to surprise me as I did not see the twists coming, which was the same case with Illuminae (view spoiler). It was impossible not to compare Gemina to Illuminae, which I thought was close to perfection, so this review has probably come off sounding mostly negative, which probably does this book a bit of a disservice. So I have to add here that Gemina is still above and beyond most of the YA I've read this year or any year for that matter, especially when it comes to space operas. So although I did not enjoy this one quite as much as Illuminae, I think overall both books are pretty ingenious story-wise and format-wise and I enjoyed them both immensely. I do want to point out that these are books that you need to own a hard copy of to get the full experience. An audio book alone would not do it justice at all as you would miss out on the whole visual experience and it would probably be hard to see some of the pages in ebook form. I'm looking forward to reading book number three next year.

Review also posted at Writings of a Reader ...more

12 likes · Like · see review

May 10, 2017 Trisha rated it really liked it

"NOW CHILDREN,
WATCH CLOSELY.
HOLD YOUR BREATH.
LISTEN.
AND I WILL SHOW YOU
THE COMPONENTS OF CALAMITY"

This was so good. It took about the first 100 pages to get into the story again - it's been a while since I've read book 1 and the writing style and delivery method is so unique, it takes a moment to get used to it again. But once I did, it was easy to slide right into the story.

And what an interesting story. Again, we have a ship full of people and a calamity about to hit. We have 2 very kickbutt k ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 11, 2020 Melanie rated it it was amazing

Third reread was a success. I definitely love this book hardcore. I noticed way more in it this time in the way of clues leading up to the big reveal at the end!

1 like · Like · see review

Oct 09, 2018 Shelley rated it liked it

This book took me a little longer to get into than the first one.

Let me also express that I am not a big fan of Sci/Fi so I am sure this has something to do with it.

Also the way the book is laid out through different documents, messages, video log reports, etc. I find distracting however my students seem to really enjoy.

I wouldn't say it was a bad book but there were so many things going on that I found it hard to keep up.

I also notice there is a lot of foul language used in the book, even tho ...more

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Jul 29, 2016 Jenn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, dystopian, read-in-2016, books-i-own, 5-star-reads, signed-copies, young-adult, sci-fi, outer-space

Holy crap! Review to come

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2021 Kayleigh {K-Books} rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: own-physical, sci-fi

Gemina Review on K-Books

“And now, born from the ashes, she’s a warrior in bloodied black.”

I first read Illuminae about a year or so ago after falling in love with the Aurora Cycle series. I was absolutely blown away by how much I loved it, especially as it’s written in a very different format to what I am used to. I absolutely flew through it, but at the time I didn’t own the second and third books. And then, story of my life, I got distracted by other books and they just went on the shelf t ...more

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Dec 28, 2022 Keri rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned, series-in-progress, mythology-challenges, 2022-12-from-my-shelves, trilogies

4.5 stars, while I LOVED this, it wasn’t quite as amazing as Illuminae was for me. I did like these main characters but wasn’t quite as attached to them as Kady and Ezra, tho I did really love Ella. Also, I felt like there was a lot more ‘normal’ writing via the many surveillance sections and less of the different color pages, different communication formats and IM or email chats, etc. so that was kind of a bummer as I really love that about this series.
That all said, I was 100% rooting for Hann ...more

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Dec 27, 2016 Susan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

WOW OH WOW, if I could rate this 100 stars I would. I loved this book just as much as the first. I do not like Sci-fi or so I thought until this series came along and blew my mind. SO SO SO good. I never want to spoil a book for anyone and I hate when others have done it for me. Just no everything you think you hate about science fiction books will totally be blown away. The only problem I have with this book is I have to wait until Fall for the last book....grrrr

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