Book Review
Title: Gemina (Illuminae Files #2)
Author: Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman
Genre: YA/Sci-Fi
Rating: *****
Review: I have read this series before but I always come back to Illuminae and Gemina because I love them. In fact, Gemina is my favourite in the series because the banter between our main characters, Hanna Donnelly and Niklas Malikov is absolutely amazing and made me laugh until my sides hurt. Hanna is the daughter of Jump Station Heimdall’s Commander, Charles Donnelly and Nik is a member of the HOK (House of Knives), a gang abroad the station. Kady’s father, Isaac Grant is also an engineer abroad the station which explains why she was worried about him in the first book. This picks up immediately after the ending of Illuminae, although it is all told in the past tense, with the Hypatia on its way to the Jump Station and will arrive in about two weeks. We learn that there is a BeiTech spy about the station that has been blocking the transmissions about the attack on Kerenza 4 but since the Lincoln failed to destroy the Hypatia BeiTech are now in trouble. I love Ella Malikova, Nik’s cousin so much despite her disability she is an amazing character. I do hate Jackson Merrick, Hanna’s boyfriend though, even before we learn his true allegiance he just isn’t someone I like.
We learn that the HOK is running a drug operation from the Jump Station but that isn’t what is concerning Nik, what’s concerning him is that a staff member using the name Sam Wheaton is smuggling a biotainer onboard but I know from previous readings that Sam is only a scapegoat for Codename Rapier we don’t learn his true identity until much later on. As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, Nik does his job with the deal but he has to leave early in order to meet Hanna and that is a good thing as the audit team coming abroad waste every single HOK member in the dock. Nik and Ella are unaware of this but Ella has a bad feeling when all the cameras went out. The audit team head to the atrium where they take control of the station, killing Hanna’s father in the process something she is also unaware at the moment as she was waiting to meet Nik. In less than 20 pages all hell has broken loose and the main characters are currently completely unaware of it. Falk is one creepy ass but he is definitely in charge but I am going to really enjoy seeing him get his ass kicked all over again but Nik, Hanna, and Ella. Theirs is also the question of the evil space creatures that the HOK were breeding that are supposed to hatch that night and there is no one to contain them, so they are going to cause major trouble. As Falk announces their control of the station, Nik and Hanna jump into action. Nik races back to Bay 17 to check on his family only to find them all dead but his cousin Ella is still safe and uses her computer skills to help them out, meanwhile Hanna is trying to find some more information on the people she loves now locked in the atrium, still unaware that her father is dead. As Falk’s team rushes out to find the remaining people not in the atrium they come up against Hanna, after training with her father for years she is prepared and manages to lock a few members in a shuttle bay which is purged flushing them out into space, presumably by Ella and that’s why I love her.
As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, things really start getting interesting as there is less than 20 hours before both the Hypatia and Assault Fleet Kennedy arrives at the jump station so it is a battle to gain control and wait for reinforcements. Hanna has more than one encounter with the BeiTech forces but her father’s training helps her survive the encounters. She also gets to met Ella who she is helping get back online so they can get some information on the people who have control of the station, Ella is also the person that breaks the news that her father is dead while omitting that she lost her own father when the forces arrived. As she retrieved the palm pad Nik gave her they are all in contact with one another but no one has clocked on yet that there have more to worry about that the BeiTech forces since the “lickers”, those creatures Ella’s father was breeding have now hatched and will be wrecking their own kind of chaos very soon. I loved the banter between these three despite the absolutely dire situation they find themselves in and they all seem a lot older than they are especially Ella who is only 15. Gemina is my favourite book in the trilogy because of these small humorous moments and the believable characters that aren’t as perfect in the first or last book.
As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, time is running out, Nik and Hanna are being hunted but they have Ella as their surprise weapon who is slowly worming her way back inside the system. Together the trio come up with a plan to slow BeiTech down for as long as they can in the hopes they blow their timeframe when people start returning to the Jump Station, or not returning as the case may be as they are looking for a way to disable the wormhole so the assault fleet can’t get through but they have less than a day to do it. BeiTech are planning to take the bridge and Jackson warns Hanna about it and my bad feeling about this guy is only growing but Isaac manages to get away so he can’t be taken by them. That man is as cunning And crafty as his daughter and we know where she got it from now. I really loved the scene with the lickers taking a whole BeiTech squad especially since AIDEN is back. I love him/it so much. With 7 of his operatives lost and his problems building Falk gets hold on Hanna on the comms unit she stole and tells her what the angel tattoo on Nik’s throat really means, it means he murdered a child but she doesn’t even give Nik the chance to explain and for once I am glad I’ve read this book before so I know the truth. That being said the reveal that Jackson is Rapier still makes my blood boil and I was so happy when that shit got kneed in the balls by Kali, even though I hate her too but we will really get to see Hanna’s skills when she is brought in for good especially since Kali and others have been sent to kill her once and for all.
As we cross into the second half of the novel, Hanna knows who and what Jackson is but it doesn’t make it hurt any less, although I think injuring Kali’s team helped. However, Falk is furious and as a result kills 57 people by flushing them out into space and Hanna thinks it is her fault even though Ella says different. Hanna tells Ella she knows about Nik but Ella tells her that she doesn’t know anything and she refuses to help until she and Nik have talked, although she does make an announcement telling people to put envirosuits on and opens the internal vents meaning Falk can’t flush them but it also unleashes the lickers on everyone which they still haven’t clicked onto. Isaac Grant is so precious but he believes that Kady is dead, so he and Hanna make a good team keeping each other’s minds of what they have supposedly lost. The trio are trying to buy as much time as they can in order to get a message through the Kerenza and the Hypatia about what is happening there. However, Falk now knows about the lickers and the wormhole is back online and they are testing it just as Nik takes a shuttle out with the missing hermium rod attached to it, and this is where stuff gets strange. On the other side, Ella has managed to distract Mantis and get a message through to the Hypatia.
As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, things are getting really strange as Nik appears with the flowers that he lost earlier in the novel but as I know the ending it isn’t that strange me but it still makes me think what the hell is happening. Hanna doesn’t join the dots together yet and neither does Ella but the pair head down to the reactor in order to break the jump gate with Isaac’s instruction but Falk clocks on to what they are doing and gather his 9 nine team members and goes to hunt them down. Nik and Hanna share their first kiss which was uplifting given how dark this novel has got in an exceedingly small number of pages. Ella, good god, manages to get a warning to the pair before she is set upon by a licker and is seemingly killed but I know with Kristoff and Kaufman that some characters might appear dead only to reappear later on. Nik has an idea to use the coolant in the reactors to ward off the lickers that are everyone in the reactor and draws them to the people hunting them in order to give them a chance to escape and to be fair this works buying them seconds but Jackson is blocking their escape. Torn between killing them or letting them go we don’t see the choice that he would have made because he is attacked by a licker giving them a head start on Kali who is just behind them. She stops to help Jackson/Rapier but is soon chasing the pair down dead set on killing the girl who killed her lover despite Falk’s order to return to the line. Just when escape is in sight Nik makes a huge mistake he stops to retrieve Hanna’s journal as it is the only piece of her father she has left and he pays the price, 3 bullets to the torso. As he lies dying, Hanna and Kali engage in combat with Hanna being the victor and it is safe to say I cheered her on when she blew Kali’s brains out but she is greeted with death once more.
As we cross into the final section of the novel, so much stuff goes down, some of it I don’t even understand but holy hell is it good to read. In the wake of Nik’s death, Hanna manages to get in contact with Hypatia again who are telling her that they are receiving transmissions from Nik. Syra Boll, acting Captain of the Hypatia is the one who mentions multiverse theory and the Gemina particle most of which I do not understand and I was pulling a confused face much like Ezra but they don’t have the processing power to fix it so both universe are set to be wiped out. However, Kady chooses now to inform Syra she has a copy of AIDEN and after some persuasion AIDEN is let loose, in the hopes of saving both universes and returning Nik to his own universe and back to Hanna. The steps they have to go through in order to achieve this are insane but I don’t feel sorry for the deaths of the BeiTech goons although I will miss Falk, I kind of liked that guy. In the end it is Jackson who stays behind to allow the trio of Nik, Hanna, and Ella to get through the wormhole to the Hypatia which is where he is going to die. His final act is to fake a report claiming he killed Hanna, Nik and Ella and died himself so that the Illuminae group would have time to pull together all the documents they need. When we return to the courtroom Hanna joins the conversation and explains this and Leanne is completely and utterly fucked but the story isn’t over yet as there is still Obsidio to go. Overall, I loved Gemina even more than in previous readings and Falk is my beau, there’s just something about him I love but that’s life.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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