Gemina: The Illuminae Files: Book 2 (Illuminae Files, #2)

by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman

‘Wholly unique and utterly captivating.’ Marie Lu

Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter; Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. But while the pair are struggling with the realities of life aboard the galaxy's most boring space station, little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed right toward Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.
When an elite BeiTech strike team invades the station, the two are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station residents one by one, and a malfunction in the station's wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped apart before dinner.

Soon Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival; the fate of everyone on the Hypatia—and possibly the known universe—is in their hands.

But relax. They've totally got this. They hope.

Picking up about five minutes after Illuminae ends, Gemina is an electrifying sequel.

• ISBN10: 1780749813
• ISBN13: 9781780749815
• Publish Date: 20 October 2016 (first published 18 October 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Rock the Boat
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 672
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sarah Says]

Bloody Brilliant! I LOVED it! No surprises there, I loved Illuminae. I'm only sorry it took me so long to read book two. The positive is that I don’t have long to wait for the third book, Obsidio :-) YAY! It’s out next month (March 13th, 2018).

I love the way The Illuminae Files story is told, the way the books are set out, I think it makes them stand out from all other YA sci-fi. They are textual masterpieces. Whoever helped Amie and Jay bring these babies to life has some mad skills.

In this book we get to meet some new characters (I ship Hanna and Nik, and think Ella is the bomb) and catch up with some old faves (woop woop hello again AIDAN, Kady and Ezra). The BeiTech baddies continue their debauchery and the ending leaves you NEEDING the final book.

[Amber]

This review was originally posted on Books of Amber

I wasn’t too sure about Gemina before I read it because I was on the fence about Illuminae. In the end, I picked it up because I was in the mood for something written in a style such as this, and I knew that I’d at least somewhat enjoy the story. What actually happened was I ended up liking Gemina a lot more than Illuminae because I felt more connected to the main character, and I feel like the story flowed better.

I think the greater use of video transcripts worked really well here and helped me enjoy the book more. There was less instant messaging and email threads, and more transcripts this time. It sense to use them more since a lot of the action was taking place away from the main characters. Plus, the amusing voice of the narrator was a great addition to the story.

I realised that I love this style of storytelling, and I think it particularly works with science fiction. Sure, it’s easy to do with contemporary and romance, but I think using it to tell a science fiction story just adds that something extra.

I did, however, realise that I am so over the bad boy romance thing. I probably would have shipped Hanna and Niklas like crazy a few years ago, but now I didn’t feel any chemistry between them at all, and I really wasn’t bothered by the faux bad boy character arc.

I adored Hanna. I thought she was a really interesting protagonist. Sure, we’ve seen the like before. Military daughter, BAMF, great fighter, snarky… but I like that in a female protagonist so it worked.

Reading this has made me really excited for Obsidio. Like, it is probably in my top three most anticipated releases for 2018. I cannot wait!

[readingwithwrin]

No, it can't just end like that!

*Full Review*

Read my review for Illuminae the first book in this trilogy first.

I listened to this book on audio while following along with the physical book. Still highly recommend doing it this way, so you can get the full effect and truly feel like you are a part of the story.

When we first meet Hanna Donnely it seems like she's just going to be like any other military brat. But once the action starts happening we see her true colors underneath the life she has made for herself. We see the training her father has given her since she was little actually proving to be useful and we see her make tough/scary decisions that will affect everyone on multiple ships.

Nik seems like he is going to be your typical bad boy just in space. But he's got secrets of his own, and his bad-boy act is just that for the most part. Yes, he's done some questionable things, but nothing as bad as everyone thinks. He's done things to protect his family and continues to do so when it comes to Hanna and his cousin Ella who is also on board.

My favorite out of all the new character is Ella. She is a computer hacking genius who is paralyzed but doesn't let that stop her from helping Hanna and Nik save the ship.

For most of this book, I wasn't really sure how it and the first one we're going to connect, but towards the end, we see how. Katy is still using the information she found out at the end of the first, and it appears that the third and final book will be where she is able to show everything she has found out and use it take down BeiTech.

I'm still loving this series, and how it incorporates so many different things and truly feels like a movie. I can't wait to see what ends up happening next and I hope some of my theories are correct!

[Ashley]

Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

Fuck.

[luddite]

Fun read. A solid 3.5.

[KitsuneBae]

This review also appeared on Wayward Kitsune.

Although you’re not reading this, my biggest thanks to you for giving me one of the best gifts in 2016, my co-employee! I really regretted the fact that I did not read Gemina sooner because it’s so mindblowing I’m still picking up my brain pieces at the moment.

Like the Illuminae, Gemina was written in epistolary format complete with letters, transcripts, journal writings and drawings, chat messages, etc. The variety of methods that Kaufman and Kristoff used to tell the story surely guaranteed a phenomenal and wild ride.

The plot was also a feast for the mind as it challenged every brain cell of mine. Illuminae was all about escaping BeiTech and surviving a psychotic AI named Aidan. Gemina is all about recapturing Jump Station Heimdall (which as you can remember is the Hypatia’s aimed destination in Illuminae) from a group of BeiTech mercenaries. Obviously and eventhough AIDAN’s (my favorite AI character) presence is only minor, I can say that I enjoyed Gemina more mostly because of the following reasons:

1. The villains- OMG! Even if they’re cold blooded murderers, their interactions and what happened to each one of them as they tried to fulfill their tasks were really hilarious.
2. The Lanima- Ok, who wants to get high?
3. The banter- Seriously, with the gravity of the situation our beloved Heimdall residents are in, it’s astounding to know that it was so hard not to smile while navigating the whole story.
4. Our characters- I love Kady, Ezra (and their relationship) and Aidan but Nik, Hanna and Ella had their own brand of charm. Although a part of me was quite disappointed that Nik was one of those bad boys with a dark past and that his characterization was mostly defined by that, I was still happy with the overall characterization of our trio. Hanna, of course, was just… can I marry her or something?
5. Gemina- Ok, go figure, guys. I thought Gemina was some sort of a galaxy Goddess that our trio has to summon while high on dust. How very wrong I was.
6. Just a simple boy- I really really like this phrase. Makes me want to have a matching shirt with “Just a very simple girl” printed on it.
7. The whole setup of Jumpstation Heimdall- Fuck it all! I want to live in a space station surrounding a wormhole. Hanna must be fucking out of her mind for declaring it as a boring residence area.
8. AIDAN- I don’t think any Illuminae book would be complete without our psychotic AI resident.
9. Kristoff and Kaufman- You, guys, are the best. The Illuminae Files is one of the most innovative series I’ve read in my reading career. If somebody asks me to list down all the reasons why I’m thankful for being born in this lifetime, I’d definitely include your names and the Illuminae files, authors.
10. Basically everything. Authors, hurry up with the third book.

Review originally posted at Simply Adrift.

I finished Gemina, and I'm not entirely sure how to gather all of my thoughts.

I loved Illuminae. I loved the style of writing, I thought the idea of reading a story through case reports was interesting, I was a little afraid of not being able to connect to the characters because of this style but I found out it was fine and I was indeed able to connect with the characters.

When I picked up Gemina I had high expectations. Were they met? In a short answer? Mostly. I say mostly because there were a few things that I picked up on that I was 'meh' about.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. The style was once again very interesting, I still really enjoyed reading the story through a dossier of emails, IMs, transcripts, classified files and schematics. This time however I felt like I got more of the story and could connect with the characters more. Not entirely sure what was different, perhaps because there were more video summary reports from Analysts rather than IM's which I found hard to really get into in Illuminae. Although there were some 'files' where the page was black and the writing was dark grey which was really confusing, it was hard to read so I was trying to figure out why they thought that was a good idea?

At the beginning of the book we get a peak into Hanna's personal diary, Marie Lu was the illustrator and the pages were so cool! The illustrations were awesome! However, we stopped seeing these less than half way through the book which was sad because they were so good! I wanted more of Hanna's diary throughout the whole book.

Gemina is based on a space station in the middle of nowhere. The station itself orbits a black hole which is used as a gateway for space travel. I thought that was a really interesting idea. The story centres around two characters, Hanna and Nik. Hanna happens to be the daughter of the new commander of the space station, she's super hot but she's also a bad-ass and knows how to fight etc. While Nik is there with his family who happen to be the mob and deal drugs for a living. Nik's family are also not registered as living on the station but no one can stop them because of who they are. Nik's more of a charmer and a flirt rather than a real bad boy that ha done some real bad stuff.

Gemina actually felt a lot like Illuminae. The formula of the story was very similar. It's set on a space station in the middle of nowhere, there's an impending doom that no one can help with in time, a parasite bug on the station is killing or dis-arming everyone, a bad-ass heroine, an unlikely relationship, no adults around to save the day. While it was really similar I still enjoyed Gemina a lot, but I was also constantly drawing these parallels between this and Illuminae. Gemina didn't really mix it up enough to be a completely new story, so I can see how people aren't loving this as much as the first book, there was no 'WTF' moment.

I mean there definitely were twists. (DON'T READ THIS SPOILER if you haven't read Gemina yet). The reason this book is called Gemina became apparent near the end, and I really enjoyed this idea. Albeit it ended up making  part of the story a bit cliche. You know how one MC dies and then suddenly the other MC finds out that, that MC is still alive in the other universe so they're not actually dead and they both can be reunited and perhaps start a relationship once it's all over? I mean of course one of the MC's  isn't dead. When does the love interest ever actually die? 

So I didn't really feel that emotionally connected to this moment because I felt like there was something coming up. It felt like I was watching a movie made in the 90's. You know how some of those movies set up the drama or impending doom? They specifically show you a camera shot of something and you know that something bad will happen. But the people in the movie have no idea what they're up against.

Like in the movie Dante's Peak with Pierce Brosnan, they keep showing camera shots of a water spring that's meant to be cold, but - uh oh - it's starting to boil - unknown to the people that live around the mountain. So we as watchers know that something is about to happen with the volcano but everyone in the movie is none the wiser. This was the kind of feeling I kept getting with Gemina. Was this a bad thing? Not really, but it did pull me out of the story a bit because I kept comparing this to movies made in the 90's that I watched in Social Studies in High School.

Did I enjoy Gemina? Hell yes I did. I enjoyed the ass kicking, the parasite bug things scared me, I really loved the science behind the space station built around and orbiting a black hole, I loved the science part. Yes, the above things made me laugh or cringe, but I still enjoyed this book for what it was. The fact it wasn't something that blew me out of the water is the reason why I can't rate it higher than I have.

Overall I enjoyed Gemina a lot. I was taken along for the ride and was able to immerse myself in the world.

Have you read Gemina? Did you enjoy it? Did you have major issues with it? What were your thoughts?

Always,
Jordon

This review was originally posted on Simply Adrift

[liz089]

Woow ! I just could not stop reading this one. I started on it yesterday and I just kept going and going and going until I finished it late last night XD It was so thrilling and sensational !! And to be honest, I was kind of scared XD
I loved the main characters ! Hanna was awesome and brave and Nik so cool as well !! Loved Ella 3
There were some plottwists I did not see coming and I loved seeing Kady and Ezra back at the end.. Can't wait for the next one !! Love how this book is made up, I just flew through the pages.

[Angie]

This series is slowly killing my dream of space travel. Gemina jumps us from following Kady on the Hypatia to meeting Hanna and Nik on the Heimdall waystation. Hanna is the commander's daughter, and Nik is part of a notorious crime family and her drug dealer. And it's probably their latest drug deal which saves their lives and allows them to save the others on the station. Of course, BieTech has to take out everyone who knows about their operation, which means taking out Heimdall since the Hypatia is on its way there. But things are not as they seem on the isolated station.

Gemina was a wild ride! It's once again formatted as a dossier full of IM logs, video transcripts, pages from Hanna's journal, and various other necessary documents. This is such a fun and engaging way to read the story. It's like being right there in the action, which was actually kind of scary at times. Illuminae had a rapidly mutating virus, and this time we get a rapidly growing alien species with one thing on it's mind: feed! I loved how this creature came to be on the space station, and I honestly didn't expect it to take the turn that it did. But then again, there's a lot of clever coincidences happening here.

I did get a bit of a brainsplotion near the end of Gemina. WTF is going on?! How is this happening?! I love what is happening?! Explain! Even though the entire thing is set in space, it takes a very super Science Fiction turn which had me furiously flipping pages! How in the universe did that happen!? Did they really fix it?! What was that ending?!

Gemina does end on a cliffhanger! I want to know what they did?! Is everyone okay?! Who is everyone!? Is BeiTech getting what's coming to them?!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[ross91]

I like it more than Illuminae.