Gemina/Obsidio: A Combined Review

I thought that, seeing as I read both of these books in quick succession and they’re part of the same series, I would put the two reviews into one post, without spoilers of course.

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Gemina

So, let’s start with book 2 in the Illuminae Files, Gemina by the amazingly talented author super team that is Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I read this in such a short space of time and I loved it! It took me a little while to get into it, but I think that after I got back into the writing style and got introduced to the characters, I was hooked!

I loved the characters in this book! The relationships between Hanna, Nik, and Ella were brilliant! At first I wasn’t too sure of Hanna’s character, I thought she was quite shallow and wasn’t going to be someone who I enjoyed reading about. However, she really grew on me! She was so smart, so tactical, and so cool! She was so strong, despite everything she’s been through/goes through, and I knew that she would be a fighter! She fought for everything, and she fought hard. Nik was the ‘bad guy’ character who grew on me quickly. He was funny, confident, and had such a good heart. His family meant everything to him, despite them being a notorious gang. Nik’s cousin, Ella, was a genius!!!! I found myself really enjoying any scenes she was in – and I loved seeing her interactions with other characters. She was very much like Kady in Illuminae, a master hacker and a master of computers.

The way these books are written is so unique; you’ve got instant message chat logs, analyses of security camera footage, diagrams of ships and space, words forming shapes. It was beautiful. I found myself loving the different way this book was laid out, it made it seem that much more futuristic.

After the 25% mark of this book, I flew through it! I found that the pace picked up quite a bit, and the writing just seemed to flow. It takes a while to get used to the writing style and the story, but I think once you hit that mark, it’s easy to get hooked.

Obsidio

Again, I loved this book. It took me a little bit longer to get into it as I was so into the events of Gemina. I don’t want to give too much away about this book as it was an ending and a half but I will say, this book was great!!

Like I said, the book took me a little while to get into, but I still devoured it in about three days! It just took that little push through the early scenes of the book, and then once again, I was hooked. This book had some more great characters, and some familiar faces (no spoilers, don’t worry). I love the interactions between old and new characters, whether they knew each other originally or not, it was nice to see the continuation over the course of the books.

Overall I thought that this book was an excellent end to an amazing trilogy. I loved the uniqueness of the writing style, the way the words flowed so beautifully. I loved the characters. I loved seeing different snippets of their lives and their situations, from their own points of view, or from a camera’s. I loved everything about this book. I wish I’d read the trilogy sooner!

This trilogy was amazing. Honestly I couldn’t recommend it enough. I’m so glad I’ve finally read it, and it’s very easily become a new favourite. One day I’m going to reread these by listening to the audiobooks as I’ve heard nothing but great things about them. I finished Obsidio and I just wanted to read more, it took me a couple of days to get into my current read! I loved these books though, I gave them both 5/5 stars!

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I can’t wait to read more from these incredible authors in the future, especially with Aurora Rising coming out next month – another science fiction series from these two? Yes please!

Have you read this book yet? Let me know what you thought!

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