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Illuminae (The Illuminae Files_01) | June 24, 2015

by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, October 2015)

First things first: Illuminae is not a novel, or at least not a traditional one. Rather, it is a dossier including interview transcripts, summaries of video footage, captured emails and instant messages, and operating system datafiles. This dossier tells the story of an attack on a remote space colony and the devastating aftermath, focusing on 17-year-old Kady Grant, a master programmer who is forced to evacuate her home during the deadly attack. Shortly after her rescue, Kady joins up with a renegade programmer, and together they discover that their rescuers are not being entirely honest about the rescue fleet’s state of affairs. As Kady searches for the truth, she finds she needs the help of someone she thought she’d never speak to again — her ex-boyfriend Ezra, who was evacuated onto a different ship in the fleet.

The action unfolds via documents and lines of code rather than prose narrative, which makes for a fascinating and unique reading experience.. But more than that, Illuminae is an emotionally impactful story of courage, loss, romance, and an exploration of what really makes us human.

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