Publisher: Knopf Books
Page Count: 608
Gemina is the sequel to Illuminae (click here to read my review) and I was lucky enough to read it with my blogging friend Marie @Drizzle and Hurricane Books! Just like with its predecessor, there was some crazy stuff going on and I was really glad I had someone to freak out with.
This series is incredibly difficult to review without spoiling it. So, I won’t even really attempt to talk about what is going on in terms of plot. Go an experience it for yourself! What I can say, is that I would like to be able to tell you that I was surprised by what happened, but I think Marie can attest to me predicting or sensing that something would happen at least 90% of the time. There is really no way of telling if that was just me or if it was easier to guess now that I knew how the authors worked from what I read in Illuminae, but it was still full of twists and turns and I had a lot of fun!
I actually liked Gemina better than Illuminae somehow. I clicked with the new characters way faster, but fear not, our old heroes and villains make plenty of appearances. And while I still am not able to see the entire big picture here, I love how everything is connected. It’s quite a massive book, but the format just makes it so much easier to breeze through the whole thing in very little time. There were less schematics and more doodles and sketches from a journal, which helped me personally a lot. I think that I got confused with all the different ships last time around. However, I still think that it’s a shame they don’t offer the book in colour. I would definitely be willing to pay more for a chance to have it really be even more astounding.
While, as I said, I enjoyed the format again, there were also a couple things about it I had issues with. For one, a couple of the last chapters felt incredibly repetitive for reasons I cannot go into detail with. It was fun and made sense at first, but it simply dragged on for too long and I was actually happy when that part of the story was over. And second, it sometimes was printed in such a dark colour on dark background that it was near impossible to read (seriously! WHYYY?). I get that that’s sometimes on purpose, but not in a regular chat room conversation. Maybe I had a weirdly printed version, but if that’s a general issue, they should definitely work on that for the finale.
Speaking of which – I cannot wait to see what this all leads to and how it ends for all those characters that have really grown on me!
Fazit: 4.5 stars! It was even better than Illuminae, which I so didn’t expect. I AM READY FOR THE FINALE!
Now that I’ve successfully said basically nothing about the book, how do you feel? Have you read Gemina already? Are you going to?
Life and Other Disasters 
AHhh I’m glad you liked this!! I, sadly, could not get into Illuminae (I still have no idea what’s going on) but honestly the layout of the book was one of the most fascinating I’ve ever seen! If I ever get into it, I’m very excited to read Gemina. Lovely review! ❤
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I totally get it! Everyone was really hyped up about Illuminae, but it took me forever to get into it. And even in the end, I didn’t feel like I actually ever connected it as much as others seemed to. So, I went in a little hesitant into Gemina, but I enjoyed it much more.
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Yh it took me time to get into it but once i did it was such a good action packed book
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I actually got into this way faster than I did with Illuminae.
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I still haven’t read Illuminae! So glad you liked this– I’ll definitely have to try the series. 🙂
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I struggled a little with Illuminae at first, but I was smitten by the appearance of an unusual character later on in the series. I hope you’ll enjoy it, if you get around to it 😀
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I agree with you about a lot of what you said! The font colours were annoying and there were times when I wanted to see the pages in colour. I also clicked with the characters and the story a lot sooner in this book then in the last one. I hate the pseudo-cliffhanger at the end and that i have to wait an entire year to read the next one!
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I know it sounds stupid, but I am kind of glad I am not the only one who had issues with the font colours. I thought I was just very unlucky with my print, but seen as I am not alone, they should really work on that for the last book. The cliffhanger was weird, but I didn’t expect anything else. I just want the final book now … I wonder which colour the cover will be!
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People are saying green but there are a few that want purple or brown.
Also I wrote something like this in my review about the colours: As a person with really good eye sight sitting in a well lit room I struggled reading some of the parts of this book, I would hate to know how bad of a time other people had. So, no, you are not alone! I get they wanted to distinguish who is saying what because that is important, but at the same time the final choices were not the best.
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I think I could see purple for the cover. Quite a couple of series I’ve read had that colour progression hahaha
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I took me a while to figure out why people were thinking green for the cover: it’s the yellow of Illuminae with the Blue of Gemina (the highlighted part of the book title on the spine) which would be neat, but then I’m partial to green to begin with. But whatever colour they pick I just want it in my hands!
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Oooooh! That would kind of make sense I guess. I don’t know, I am just thinking of space-like colours. But yeah, in the end I just want to have it, no matter the colour.
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Purple would be likely my second colour of choice, though a good brown tone would be interesting too. An allegory for mud waters ahead? as well. But really, is it october yet? Can I have it yet?
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I want it to be a spacey purple
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That would make sense.
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I knew you’d manage to review this before me haha. I need to review it…someday soon, hopefully mine will be up next week. BUT I am feeling everything you did just as well, I really liked this book and grew fond of the characters, but some passages were SO repetitive it kind of annoyed me a bit. And that book in color? That would be incredible.
We have to buddy read the last book when it’s released 😀
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Hahaha you’ll get to it soon! I still have 3 reviews to write, and this one was just the oldest, so I thought I should do it first. Can’t wait for your review 😀
And DEFINITELY! I love buddy reading with you.
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I’ll try to write it this weekend (read: I HAVE to write it this weekend) for it to be up next week 😀
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YOU CAN DO IT!
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I’m still waiting for the expectations created by the hype to wear off before I can dive into Illuminae, but it’s a relief to know the second book is as good. I hate when series have a great first book and then let you down. I think I’ll wait for all the books to be released 😀 Great review!
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Yeah, I didn’t love Illuminae, although I still enjoyed it. The hype surely was part of that. I hope you’ll like the books whenever you around to them, waiting for the final book is probably a good idea, there are quite a lot of cliffhangers haha
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I haven’t read Gemina yet so I don’t super know why I was looking at your review. I read Illuminae as an audiobook and I LOVED it. I don’t know why, but it helped me to connect with the characters a lot more when I could hear their voices. It’s the first audiobook I’ve ever read, too. But it’s so good and I can’t wait to read Gemina.
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Hahaha I am glad I didn’t put anything spoilery in my reviews. (although if I ever would do such a thing, it would be clearly marked, so don’t you worry) And that’s interesting. I hear Sleeping Giants is quite awesome as an audiobook, but I haven’t heard much about Illuminae yet (and I just thought of that particular book because it’s also written in transcripts, but not nearly as artistic). Well, I hope you’ll enjoy Gemina as well!!
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Ah I’m so so glad it was even better than illuminae!!! I’m so excited to read this!!!
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I read Illuminae and was able to guess some of the major twists. Glad to hear the plot twists are still abundant in the sequel. Looking forward to see how everything is going to connect themselves and how the third and final book will close the series up (once it comes out of course)! Great review! 😀
– Lashaan
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I just really want to know what colour the final book will have. I am weird like that.
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Yoooooo I was wondering the same thing as I was reading Illuminae LOL
– Lashaan
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