I am really really late to the Illuminae party. I loved this audio book so much - 4.5 stars! 
 This was a story that continued to impress and surprise me. I went in slightly blind about the story, only knowing from seeing the book that it was written as a series of messages and that it was set in space. I hate stories set in space. There is a first for everything however and Illuminae is the first story set in space that I couldn't put down. 
 I became a little obsessed. 
 A big reason I become head over heels in love is the quality of this audio book!! Oh hell it is amazing!! I have never listened to such a high production value audio book. There were sound effects, multiple narrators/actors, a variety of accents and the music at the end!! My god. Best audio book award over here please. But the merits of this story weren't all based in production values. No, it was based in the characters. Not necessarily the story because well...the story is not new. We have seen it before. Essentially Zombies in space, that in the audio book freaked me out no end. They sounded, for those familiar very much like the adam-addicted humans from the Bioshock series. Yet the story was done in such a way that I constantly wanted to know what happened next. The enemy (zombies) were something I was familiar with. The risks and martyrdom I'd also seen before. Nonetheless the twists kept happening and when the AI makes a heart wrenching reveal to Kady near the end I actually gasped...I got super into this book. Regarding the characters I liked and loved them all. I also had no problems with the relationship between Kady and Esra. It had me hooked from the beginning actually. I'm so glad it wasn't an insta-love! My cons with characters were the lack of touching on family. It strayed a little into extremely independent teenagers that sometimes happens in YA books. However as the book moved on family was mentioned more and I felt almost satisfied. I think that the audio book is a must try for this story. It is amazing quality. Yet I do still want to purchase this book in physical form, I don't want to miss out on the art work that was put into place for the original form of this book. 
 If you want to read or listen to a gripping story set in space with a great female protagonist, and twists here there and bloody everywhere then I'd recommend picking up Illuminae. I enjoyed this a lot and can't wait to get on to Gemina!