Gemina - by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Title: Gemina
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Published: 1 Nov 2016
Series: The Illuminae Files #2
Rating: 5 stars
Synopsis: 
The saga that began with breakout bestseller Illuminae continues aboard Jump Station Heimdall, where two new characters will confront the next wave of BeiTech’s assault. Hanna is the station commander'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, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. But alien predators are picking off the station crew one by one, and a malfunction in the station’s wormhole means the space-time continuum might be ripped in two 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.
Told through a compelling dossier of emails, IMs, classified files, transcripts and schematics, Gemina raises the stakes of the Illuminae Files, hurling readers into an enthralling new story that will leave them breathless.

For full effect, read everything Merrick says in a loin-stirringly deep, upper-crust accent while listening to smooth jazz.

I listened to this one as an audiobook and followed along in my physical copy. The pictures in the book were absolutely amazing and the sound effects in the audiobook draws you in. I love the pictures that Hanna has drawn in her journal too.

One of my favourite parts was when Ella said "poor cow cows :( ". It was very cute and it made me smile.

"I know one sixth of three tenths of absolutely f*** all."

Nik's 'bedtime story' about his grandma was a good one. It was an amusing message to pass along to people through the book too - don't hurt a woman, or she will hurt you back just as bad but you won't know when.

"Food, Highness. FOOOOOODDDD."

Question: Why does AIDAN explain footage sometimes and not 7123? Will we find this out in the last book in the trilogy? By now, I'm also wondering who it is.

Question: Is Zoe dead? Why doesn't she answer Ella's video messages? Will we find this out in the last book too?

I'm going to cntinue to believe that the 'amorphous slick of cold coffee' is the same one that overloaded the Heimdall systems, even if it actually isn't.

Why must Amie and Jay make me feel this way about fictional characters?!

Hanna: "You're not helping, AIDAN!"
AIDAN: "It is not as if I can get out and push."

Spoilers!

When we find out that Jackson Merrick is Rapier, and that Rapier pretended to be Sam Wheaton... My head nearly exploded.

When Hanna blew up Mess Hall 3, I knew what was going to happen as soon as we found out she was getting sugar out of the cupboard and going back to the main area of the mess hall. They explained what happens in a Criminal Minds episode I watched one day.

When Hanna finally kissed Nik, I may or may not have shed a few tears with happiness.

My jaw just about hit the floor when Ella got attacked by that Licker. Luckily her father gave her that pistol though or else she may have actually died that day.

When Nik dies in Hanna's universe, I cried big, fat, ugly tears. More big, fat tears as Hanna dies in Nik's universe too. By now, Amie and Jay have me wrapped around the little finger of their main characters.

When Merrick shot Ella in his report? Nope, I was gone. Same as when Merrick shot Nik and then Hanna in his report too.

End Spoilers!


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All books in this series:

0.5 | Memento
    1 | Illuminae
    2 | Gemina
    3 | Obsidio

Before I Let You Go - by Kelly Rimmer

Title: Before I Let You Go
Author: Kelly Rimmer
Published: 27 Feb 2018
Series: -
Rating: 5 stars
Synopsis: 
The 2:00 a.m. call is the first time Lexie Vidler has heard her sister’s voice in years. Annie is a drug addict, a thief, a liar—and in trouble, again. Lexie has always bailed Annie out, given her money, a place to sleep, sent her to every kind of rehab. But this time, she’s not just strung out—she’s pregnant and in premature labor. If she goes to the hospital, she’ll lose custody of her baby—maybe even go to prison. But the alternative is unthinkable.
As weeks unfold, Lexie finds herself caring for her fragile newborn niece while her carefully ordered life is collapsing around her. She’s in danger of losing her job, and her fiancé only has so much patience for Annie’s drama. In court-ordered rehab, Annie attempts to halt her downward spiral by confronting long-buried secrets from the sisters’ childhood, ghosts that Lexie doesn’t want to face. But will the journey heal Annie, or lead her down a darker path?

Trigger Warning: non-consent, drugs, cult

I received this book as an ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I didn't think that I was going to cry with this one, but indeed I did.

This is a story about two sisters who go from being best of friends, to barely speaking. A story about familial love, no matter what stands between them.  A story about someone who would do anything to save her sister's life.

Forgive me, Annie. I love you.

Before I Let You Go is told from two points of view - Dr. Alexis Vidler, and the journal of Annie Vidler as she goes through drug rehabilitation.

I was mainly annoyed at their mother for nine times out of ten not realising when her daughters were hurting. Especially her youngest, Annie. Personally, I think that their mother should have realised that Annie wasn't coping in Robert's house and tried to help her. I may not have children, but I'd like to think that that is what I'd do for my child in that scenario.

How hard would those three little words have been to squeeze into our last conversation? Love you, Annie.

This book makes you realise that although this is a fiction book, things like this do happen every day in reality. What I also took from this book, is that there isn't any switch that you flip to suddenly make you an addict - you can fight it and you can also not realising it's happening, but drug addiction is a slow process.

I see myself through her eyes - and as I read about those early years in the community, I'm no longer the sister who failed her, but the sister who saved her.

Spoilers!

When Annie began talking about Robert, I called it that the non-consent was probably going to happen.

I may have called it, but it doesn't make it any less painful to read or the tears about it any less real.

End Spoilers!

Illuminae - by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Title: Illuminae
Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff
Published: 1 Nov 2015
Series: The Illuminae Files #1
Rating: 5 stars
Synopsis:
One moment, Kady Grant and Ezra Mason have nothing bigger to worry about than each other. Specifically, avoiding each other in the wake of their messy break-up. In the next second, their entire world falls apart.
The year is 2375 and one of the mega-corporations that control much of deep space has just fired the opening salvo in an intergalactic war, destroying Kady and Ezra's planet. Forced to flee on a small fleet of crippled rescue ships alongside thousands of other refugees, the fear of enemy warships chasing them down is at first all-consuming but soon becomes the least of their worries. A deadly plague is ravaging the refugees on the ships; the fleet's AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be an enemy; and High Command is refusing to acknowledge that there may be a serious problem. As Kady plunges into a tangled web of data in search of the truth, she realises that Ezra is possibly the only person who can help her save the refugees before it's too late.


"With their brief lives and their tiny dreams and their hopes that seem fragile as glass."

I listened to this one as an audiobook and followed along in my physical copy. The pictures in the book were absolutely amazing and the sound effects in the audiobook draws you in.

Some pages were very easy to read as some had only a sentence or two and some had no words on them for effect - such as simply being a black page filled with outer space.

"Okay, well for the benefit of the sight-impaired, I am now raising my... oh, dear... yes, it's my middle finger at Mr. Postgrad here."

I was a bit iffy about Jimmy to start with, but he grew on me quickly. So when he was forced to stay in the airlock of the bay where the afflicted were, I did end up crying a little.

Some of the things that Ezra said to Kady made my heart burst with fondness for him. And when he drew hearts made of poetry for her, I wanted to just squish him because of how cute it was.

"Come to save her beau. Her hero. Her beloved."

My guess is that 'Spooner', one of the techs who helped try and restrain AIDAN before he came back online, is a nod towards Meagan Spooner who is Amie Kaufman's partner in crime most of the time. However I could always be very wrong, but I'd like to think that's the reason.

"My databases show no record of this Crazytown of which you speak."

I did tear up a bit when Kady was telling AIDAN about when she used to sleep in Ezra's shirts as they used to smell like him, which is how she guessed that the envirosuit that she was in was the one that he'd worn when going outside the ship.

"Tears track down her cheeks, and her eyes close.  This doesn't look much like victory."


I loved this book more than I thought I would. The 600 pages do look daunting, but I'd encourage you to try and read it anyway as it is a lovely book full of beautiful descriptions and just as beautiful pictures.

"Promises are just words. They don't mean a thing."

Spoilers!

I also cried when Byron stayed behind on the Alexander and tried to get Kady to help him from the other ship. They'd become fast friends with their mutual love of code.

Unfortunately for me, I was listening to the audiobook while driving when Kady sat and listened to Jimmy's will via datapad so I had to pull over so that I could see through my tears.

When AIDAN told Kady that Ezra was dead, I amazingly didn't cry. Probably because I didn't believe him. I figured that surely Ezra was either alive on the Alexander or over on the Hypatia, right?

However, I think my favourite page in the entire book is the one a couple of pages from the end when it is a picture of Kady and Ezra made up of the word 'together' over and over.

End Spoilers!

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All books in this series:

0.5 | Memento
    1 | Illuminae
    2 | Gemina

    3 | Obsidio

This Night So Dark - by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner

Title: This Night So Dark
Author: Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner
Published: 7 Oct 2014
Series: Starbound #1.5
Rating: 4 stars
Synopsis:
Tarver still has nightmares about the night, six months before the Icarus crash, when he rescued civilian researchers held hostage by brutal mercenaries. Now he and Lilac reconcile his memories of that night with the truth uncovered after the crash. 





This book short connects the first two novels - These Broken Stars and This Shattered World. It also includes chapter preview from book two in the trilogy, This Shattered World.

This was a nice, quick read via my Kindle app on my phone. It didn't take too long to read and it was quite addicting when I got into it as I wanted to see what happened next.

I think my favourite thing about this short is that between the chapters, you can see Lilac and Tarver having a conversation about the dream that he is recounting to her.

Lilac and Tarver are my favourite pair in this series for reasons I don't quite think that I can explain.

It was good that we got to see Tarver deal with civilians, rather than just soldiers like he was used to as it shows how he can deal with whatever odd situations he gets put into.

At the start I did like Gil Fisk as he was a nervous little new recruit, towards the middle I didn't like him for obvious reasons if you red the short, but by the end I didn't mind him as he did help Tarver. To me, that did redeem him just a bit.

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All books in this series:

    1 | These Broken Stars
 1.5 | This Night So Dark
    2 | This Shattered World
    3 | Their Fractured Light