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Teenagers
Kady and Ezra are having a really bad day. First, they broke up, and now their
planet is being attacked by a major corporation, forcing them to abandon their
homeland on separate spaceships with so much unsaid. With the enemy vessel in
slow pursuit, Kady finds herself on the Hypatia, a civilian vessel incapable of
defending itself while Ezra is housed on the Alexander, the only vessel in the
fleet capable of mounting any real defense. When a third vessel holding more
than two thousand civilians has a sudden outbreak of the zombie-like Phobo
virus, the Alexander’s AI commanding system fires upon the ship, killing all
inside. With assistance from a hacking teacher named Byron Zhang, Kady begins
hacking into intelligence and is able to determine that that the Alexander’s AI
has been taken offline and that the two remaining fleet vessels are sitting
ducks as the enemy ship approaches. With assistance from Zhang and her
ex-boyfriend Ezra, Kady attempts to devise a plan to thwart the many obstacles
facing the remaining survivors from her planet. In the end, Kady alone is able
to save the lives of all the remaining refugees from her planet.
What would make this book really
appealing to high school students is its format. It is told in censored text
messages between characters, interviews, surveillance footage summaries, and
Kady’s diary entries. Kady, Ezra and Byron can only communicate in 7 minute
text exchanges, or they risk message interception by military commanders. These
hurried exchanges of messages create a fast pace to the story. There is an
authenticity to the teens’ sarcastic banter. Even in this futuristic
environment, the teenagers sound like teenagers. Additionally, the female lead
and other female characters are fierce, competent and hold high military
commands. As a female reader, I appreciated that the female character was
saving the male. For this reason, I think the book would be a welcome read to
female readers brought up on Super Mario Brothers incessantly saving Princess
Peach.
Works
Cited
Kaufman,
Amie. (2015.) Illuminae. New York,
NY. Alfred A. Knopf.Website
http://amiekaufman.com/books/illuminae/
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