#84 Gemina

Gemina by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman 

Gemina is book 2 in the Illuninae files which is a YA sci-fi trilogy. Gemina is a direct continuation on from Illuminae, the story picks right up from where the first book ends only slight difference is that we are following different characters this time! In the first book we follow Cady & Ezra whilst in this book we are following Hanna & Nik.

Hanna is the Heimdall station captains daughter whilst Nik is described as a relunctant member of a notorious crime family. Together they must navigate the second wave of the BeiTech assault. The characters from the first book are still knocking about but just not as prominent in this book which is fine by me because if you read my review of Illuminae you will know that i didnt really care for the characters as much. I will as ever try to keep this as spoiler free as possible but there may be a few spoilers regarding the first book.

As characters Hanna & Nik were very enjoyable to read about, i particularly enjoyed Hanna. Hannas father is the captain of Heimdall and has been somewhat training Hanna her whole life to take over, he plays strategy games with her and has taught her combat training so you can imagine when BeiTech infiltrate their jump station that Hanna is ready to kick some ass. Nik was ok, much of an improvement on Ezra thats for sure, he seems very rough around the edges but we get an insight into his life as the story goes on and it really changes the readers opinion (well it did for me at least).

I downloaded this book from Audible as i have heard so many incredible things about the audiobooks of this series and i was not disappointed, it was really well done and had a full cast to really bring the story to life as well as the sound effects from the ship itself and of course the action scenes. I very quickly latched onto the characters and immediately became enthralled with the story itself, its so tense with so many twists and turns. I found myself much with the first book really enjoying the mixed media as i did read along as i listened where possible. With Gemina our main protagonist Hanna keeps an art style journal and there were lots of drawings included within the book which i believe were illustrated by the author Marie Lu which was a cool added bonus.

For me Gemina was a five star read, it had everything i wanted and more. Ive already thought about rereading it physically and its made me want to give Illuminae another chance as i may have critiqued it a little harshly. I found the flow of the plot and pacing was perfect in this book, there was never a dull moment and i was on the edge of my seat constantly. I found the introduction of more scientific things in this book to be really cool, im really into science anyway so that was really fun for me and something i wish had been more incorporated into the first book.

I had to force myself to stop listening a few times and it really felt like everything else, eating, work and sleep were invented purely to keep me away from this book. The direction the story took in this book was something i didnt see coming especially the last 100 pages or so when we really see the similarities with book 1 and its characters. For the first few hundred pages i honestly thought this was more of a companion novel as there wasnt must mention of Cady or Ezra but i was very happy when they were re-introduced. I really missed Aiden as a character and that was possibly the only thing lacking in Gemina for me and even that wasnt enough to knock any stars off.

Im honestly itching to start reading Obsidio. I will be really sad when i finish this trilogy but i do have Aurora Burning to look forward to in May.