Five Things About Illuminae 
 It is like no other. 
 You've probably heard by now, but ILLUMINAE is written in an incredibly unique way: "Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents--including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more..." It is very creative, and unlike anything I've seen before: some pages are in black, some you have to tilt your head to read, some are in chat form, etc. Trying to tell a story in such a way must have been a tremendous undertaking and a challenging task; you can tell a lot of thought went into it. 
 The suspense kept me reading. 
 Due to the formatting I mentioned above, you experience this story right alongside the characters, as though you are right there with them. Stakes feel high, and they are-thousands of lives are at risk. It keeps you on your toes, wondering what will happen next and entices you to keep reading to find out what happens. 
 I was somewhat detached from the story. 
 Can the artificial intelligence system have more character development than the actual characters? (Apparently, yes.) Because we are basically reading documents and conversations explaining what is going on, there is a certain sort of detachment, like we are observers. It also didn't allow me to connect to the characters, I wasn't all that invested in what happened to them personally and thought they were a bit bland. 
 The romance felt inauthentic. 
 It might be because I couldn't connect to the characters, but I didn't believe in this romance in this book either. The banter between the two main characters, while humorous at first, became a little annoying and too immature for my tastes. AM I TOO OLD? They start off broken up and upset at each other, as explained in the blurb, but there was no in-between stage of them building up their relationship again. It didn't sound like their reasons for breaking up were addressed so I wouldn't be surprised to see that drama carried over into the next book. 
 The grand reveal was astonishing. 
 Once everything started to come together and the truth was revealed, I had even more respect to how the story was told. It's actually pretty ingenious, not to give too much away. I'm still not entirely sure what happened exactly, but all the information to connect the dots is provided. 
 -- 
 While it was a visually beautiful and creative novel, I couldn't get into the actual story ILLUMINAE was telling. I will still probably check out the sequel though, and would still recommend this one purely for the experience it provides. 
 You can find more of my reviews on Readers in Wonderland!