If there is one thing I enjoy, it is a good space adventure. And if there is one thing I like better than that, it’s a good space adventure authored by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman. These two just know how to write a sci-fi story that will grabs you and takes you on a wild ride, makes you fall in love with the characters, and then breaks your heart completely. The Illuminae Files is one of my favourite sci-fi trilogies of all time, so when I heard they were writing another series together, I was ecstatic. Aurora Rising has been at the top of my TBR list for far longer than I would like to admit. It’s a book with an amazing concept, by authors I know and trust, in a genre I adore. Why wouldn’t I devour this book immediately? Who knows? Not I!
Aurora Rising is such a fabulous adventure, combining all my favourite things into one. It’s a space adventure with cool spaceships, a troop of utter disasters trying to work together, aliens, ancient secrets and so much sass and sarcasm it makes my little bookish heart glad. I wasn’t 100% sure, going in, whether this book was ever going to live up to the anticipation of over a year. Every time I looked at it sitting on my shelf I just knew that it was going to be amazing. Few books can really live up to that sort of personal hype. However, I should probably have trusted more, because I read this book in two days, and when I put it down, all I could think about was picking it up again and reading more.
I especially love it when unlikely groups of people are thrown together and have to figure out how to work together. They’re all very capable at what they do, and are all absolutely terrible at being part of a team, and it’s just so amusing to watch them try and figure it all out without breaking anything. I’m slightly less fond of all the points of view present in the book. There are seven of them, and while they’re all interesting in their own way, I have to admit that certain characters felt like they only had their own point of view because everyone else in the book did. I’m hoping that certain characters will get a bit more love and attention in the sequel. They deserve it, poor dears.
Of course, my favourite character is Kal. I have a real soft spot for broken young men with difficult pasts, trying their best to be good people in a world that doesn’t believe they can be anything but evil. He’s got plenty of problems, and his usual method of handling situations is usually by punching things, which he does beautifully mind you, but he does his best, bless his little heart. And on the inside he’s so soft and sweet and just deserves to be loved. He needs better in life, I tell you. I just want so much more of my little disaster boy who tries so hard to be good.
My biggest regret was not reading this book sooner, because it really just grabs you and carries you along on a wild space adventure with a group of heroes who aren’t exactly what we needed, probably, but are definitely the ones we deserved and now love. Now my greatest regret is that the sequel, Aurora Burning doesn’t come out until May, so I will have to wait impatiently until then to see how this story continues. I am making very firm promises to myself that this time I am not going to put off reading it for another year or so. I would like to say that I have learned my lesson, but let’s be honest, it’s probably going to happen again one of these days.
Have you read Aurora Rising? What is your favourite type of character?
