Gemina – Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Release date: 18 October 2016
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★ – 10/10
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Gemina (The Illuminae Files, #2) blurb:

Moving to a space station at the edge of the galaxy was always going to be the death of Hanna’s social life. Nobody said it might actually get her killed.

The saga that began with the breakout bestseller Illuminae continues on board the space station Heimdall. Hanna is the station captain’s pampered daughter, Nik the reluctant member of a notorious crime family. Little do they know that Kady Grant and the Hypatia are headed to the Heimdall, carrying news of the Kerenza invasion.

When an elite BeiTech team invades the station, Hanna and Nik are thrown together to defend their home. Soon, Hanna and Nik aren’t just fighting for their own survival. The fate of everyone on the Hypatia – and possibly in the known universe – is in their hands.

But relax. They’ve totally got this.

They hope.

I have this really bad habit of not reading blurbs to books that I will read without knowing a synopsis. For example, I never read the blurb of a sequel, because 99% of the time, I prefer to not know what will happen in the book before I get to it.

THIS WAS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES.

I went into this book not knowing what was happening (I mean, I’m not a total idiot, I figured it out pretty quickly), but as I had no knowledge of these characters or where the f*** Kady was, then I lost interest pretty quickly. I think I read about 60 pages, and then I read nothing for 2 weeks. It was February when this happened, so two weeks is exactly half the month. I was in a reading slump and I didn’t even know it! Some amazing ladies on the Insta’s sorted me right out, sending me for a re-read of great book, followed by a quick contemporary, and then I was back on Gemina like my child-self on cake.

Hanna and Nik easily became instant favourites when I returned to the book, and Ella (OMG ELLA!!), was the cherry on said, proverbial, cake. Kaufman and Kristoff can write characters. Admittedly, most of these kids (apart from growing up quickly) remain pretty true to themselves. But geez do they get put through the wringer, and you certainly see a LOT of masks dropping. Nik, the tough kid from the wrong side of mafia family, is a sweetheart.  Hanna, the spoiled little rich girl who’s more interested in getting high than seeing her dad’s speech, is actually a f***ing bad-ass! Ella, is actually Ella all the way through this book, never pretending to be anyone else, but she is amazing nonetheless.

Once again, we see our (new) unlikely heroes, up against the odds and a bunch of BeiTech goons who have come to X the whole lot of them at Heimdall Station. A LOT of characters depart the world in this book – heads up now. In fact, I can’t talk any more about this book without the possibility of giving things away.

Again,  if you read this book and manage not to scream and/or cry and/or throw said book across the room cursing its existence, its writers and why the f*** did you pick it up to begin with, only to crawl back across the room to pick it up, cradle it in your arms, whisper apologies and keep reading**; then you, Chum, are not reading it the correct way.

Bring on Obsidio (oh gawd am I terrified to read that book). Meeghan out.

** NOTE: This may or may not have actually occurred during the course of my reading this book.