by Amie Kaufman, Jay Kristoff
Genre: YA science fiction
My Rating: ★★★★★
Description:
Hanna Donnelly would rather be anywhere but Jump Station Heimdall. It's in the middle of nowhere, light years away from any real action... and any hope of a social life.
Niklas Malikov is a drug dealer and convicted criminal. After recently being released from juvenile detention, a job with his uncle on Heimdall doesn't seem like a bad idea. Turns out it's a horrible idea.
When Heimdall is invaded by a BeiTech strike team, Nik and Hanna must ally themselves with each other to save both Heimdall and the research vessel, Hypatia, from destruction by BeiTech.
But mercenaries may not be the only thing crawling through the guts of the station -- and with the Heimdall wormhole starting to malfunction, Hanna and Nik are running out of time...
Overall Thoughts
Gemina was probably my favorite book in the Illuminae Files trilogy. It was also the longest (over 600 pages!) As with Illuminae, I absolutely loved the way the story was told. I feel like I was way less unsure about the plot and characters going into Gemina, because after reading Illuminae I knew how well the style worked.
In this book, one of the main characters, Hanna, journals, and some of her drawings are included, which I really liked as well.The Characters
In terms of characterization, I liked both Hanna and Nik by the end of the book. In the beginning, Hanna is spoiled, kind of a typical rich girl, but she quickly has to focus on survival and she grows and matures by the end of the book, which I liked. Nik was... possibly stereotypical? I read another review of the book on The Story Sanctuary that compares him to the "bad boy with a heart of gold" character trope, and I'd have to agree... but I still liked him a lot (as did the author of the review). As a main character, I liked him a lot better than Ezra Mason. I also really liked his relationship with his cousin, Ella. And speaking of Ella, she was fantastic as well. She's the team hacker, and she's amazing at it, while at the same time not being so overpowered in that respect as to be annoying.
Plot/Pacing
I think one of the strongest points of the series is the plot and pacing. Despite Gemina's mildly terrifying length, it literally flew by. These books also succeed so much on a tension level. The stakes are constantly escalating, and by the end of the book, as with Illuminae, I couldn't stop turning pages. There were a lot of different factors working together -- mercenaries, killer alien parasites, a malfunctioning wormhole threatening to rip the universe in half... And of course there's a countdown, which is one of the plot devices used throughout the series that I think really helps with the tension and pacing aspects.
Also, the plot twists in this series are phenomenal. They caught me by surprise, anyway.
Content
Recommended for ages 15 and up.
Violence, including descriptions of gunshot wounds and blood. There's a high body count throughout the series. Parasitic alien life forms attack and kill several people. Descriptions of the parasites and the way they are grown is also disturbing.
Sexual content is limited to innuendo, a few references to a character being in bed with another character (not detailed). A character is forced to strip down to her underwear in one scene, not sexual.
Swearing is frequent, but most of it is blacked out. A few words are not, and it's pretty easy to tell what the characters are saying even when the words are censored.
Nik's family manufactures and sells a drug. Hanna buys this same drug, and references to having used it before. The drug itself is used in several other ways throughout the course of the story. Nik smokes.
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