4.5 Your Family Seals Your Den Stars
This is a little Firefly + Star Trek + Invasion of the Body Snatchers
I’ve enjoyed many of Jay Kristoff’s books and Aurora Rising is no exception, except that it is also written my Amie Kaufman and I’ve never read her before but will now for sure. I like the group of misfit characters brought together by long time bounds and twists of fate. I really like Aurora, the girl who floated in the void for over 200 years and came out of it into a world very changed. I definitely appreciated the twist of who the bad guy(s) are and what they are planning. Also, the worldbuilding and alien cultures created in this is a plus making the world/universe seem very deep indeed without getting too wordy.
Aurora Rising is a multiple PoV style telling. Every character has a unique voice in the story and contributes to the overall scope, so you are always in on the action.
Squad leader Tyler is the golden boy of the Academy. No drinking, not partying, no shenanigans of any kind. He should have gotten first pick to build the squad of his dreams. However, he was off rescuing Aurora from the void and so he totally missed that opportunity and now has a very eclectic squad that only has two members on it he wanted.
Those members include:
Twin sister Scarlet, serial dater, master of sarcasm, smile you could swim in and the best Face in the academy. Do not play poker with her, she can read your every tell and make you happy to be losing all of your money to her.
***There’s something about her—under the bitchy and the sexy. Something almost maternal. Goldenboy looks after us because we’re his squad. His responsibility. Scarlett looks after us because she cares. ***
Cat was almost recruited by another squad leader, until she reminded him of some important parts that might go missing if he dared try. She is the best pilot in the academy and has been friends with the twins since elementary school when she hit Ty over the head with a chair. I think that is 5-year-old equivalent to I love you, but she keeps reminding us that they are just friends *wink, wink*
Kal, an alien that looks a lot like Legolas from LoTRs, is drool worthy for me. He is the stoic fighter, with a past he can’t escape and is from a hated race. He is even hated by most members of his own race and might have a couple anger management issues, along with a deep desire to not be touched and might be feeling something akin to gravity towards our Aurora.
***“There is a gravity to everything, Aurora,” I finally say. “Not just planets. Not just stars. Every cell in our bodies, every cell in creation exerts a gravity on the objects and people around it. And…that is what I am feeling. For you.” ***
Zila is a bit strange. She is a brilliant scientist/inventor but really doesn’t seem to understand people or emotions at all. She likes statistics and can totally tell you your odds of survival in a pinch. She also likes to shoot things with her stun gun, like a lot, like even people she knows. Be careful around her.
***“Zila, you’re the smartest person on this ship,” he says. “You might be one of the smartest people in the whole Legion. Do you know what your problem is?”
“I…would be happy to hear your feedback, sir,” she replies.
“Your problem is that you know how everything works except other people.” ***
From another alien race is Finian, the Tech wiz in a suit. It’s not a go to the office kind of suit but a I had an illness as a kid that jacked up my body and I need this to compensate suit. He may or may not be a little on the defensive side of life because of it and pushes most people away with sass and snark.
Last but not least is someone who isn’t a member of the crew but appears to be at the center of a huge conspiracy and might just be the key to saving the entire universe, Aurora. The girl that just spent 200 years in the void is the biggest unexpected wild card of them all. She was supposed to go to a colony off earth, but history doesn’t remember that colony at all and now she is wanted by the Global Intelligence Agency a.k.a. the GIA
***IF YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE GIA, I SUGGEST TERRIFIED AND ABJECT APOLOGIES. EITHER THAT, OR PRAYER ***
But no pressure for this newly formed team to protect someone that could get them all killed.
I loved this adventure tale. It has a little bit of everything in action, adventure, destruction, a mystery, an evil plot, a potentially epic love story, a very likable squad and dinosaurs (okay it wasn’t an earthen dinosaur but it seemed like the biggest baddest monster in the galaxy) just to round everything out.
Wow there are some heart pounding moments in this and I loved the ride. I’m going to have to check of Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman’s other series to get me by until the next book is released.
Audio Note:
There is a full cast of narrators for all of the different PoVs. All the cast was good but Steve West was absolutely perfect for the voice of Kal, and this is why I love ensemble casts, you can always tell whose PoV your listening too. But the downside is that Steve West is one of my favorite Narrators and so I wanted him to have more PoVs. It was an incredibly enjoyable listening experience.
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Popular Highlights in this book
“Do moons choose the planets they orbit? Do planets choose their stars? Who am I to deny gravity, Aurora? When you shine brighter than any constellation in the sky?”Highlighted by 473 Kindle readers- In old Terran mythology, Aurora was the goddess of the dawn. She heralded the coming of daylight, the end of night.Highlighted by 288 Kindle readers
- “There is a gravity to everything, Aurora,” I finally say. “Not just planets. Not just stars. Every cell in our bodies, every cell in creation exerts a gravity on the objects and people around it. And…that is what I am feeling. For you.”Highlighted by 228 Kindle readers
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| Aurora Rising | Aurora Burning | Aurora's End | Illuminae | Gemina | Obsidio | |
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| Price | $16.45 | $8.99 | $6.99 | $21.00 | $10.89 | $11.99 |
| Don’t miss BOTH of the epic series from bestselling co-authors Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff! | The Aurora Cycle: Book 1 | The Aurora Cycle: Book 2 | The Aurora Cycle: Book 3 | The Illuminae Files: Book 1 | The Illuminae Files: Book 2 | The Illuminae Files: Book 3 |
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Reviews with images
Epic space adventure with witty banter and hot space elves!
WOW.That’s it, that’s my whole review.Mostly kidding, but also, how am I to be expected to review this masterpiece? Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff are the greatest duo to ever duo and I hope we are blessed with 50 more books from the two of them. They did such a fabulous job with The Illuminae Files I never imagined they could top those books, but Aurora Rising just might take the cake in Sci-Fi for me and I have no regrets that I’ve purchased roughly 5 copies of this beautiful book, including the coveted Goldsboro edition 😜“But to reject my darker side only strengthens it. To lock it in a cage, to deny it is part of me … I cannot stop being what I am.”Let’s jump right into the characters of Aurora Rising because I felt this was a very character driven book and they are so impressive to me I don’t know how not to just flail around about all these babies and what they have to go through. First up is Tyler, the Alpha of Squad 312 who sports a killer set of dimples. Tyler is so brazenly heroic I almost couldn’t help but laugh, he wants nothing more than to be the top Alpha to ever grace Aurora Academy but then he manages to get himself stuck leading this rag tag group of misfits and all hell breaks loose.Aurora is the mystery girl that could potentially be the trigger for a war that’s been brewing for a million years, you know, just an average day no big thing 🤷♀️ she is so lost and confused and I just want her to find all the answers she needs. Fin is the SASSIEST member of the team, holy cats did he have me cackling while I was reading. Every word that comes out of his mouth is so clearly a defense mechanism and honestly I lived for it. I think I loved reading his chapters most of all, I enjoyed seeing him develop as a character and seeing the struggles he goes through.There are so many more characters of this rag tag group: Kal, Scarlett, Cat, Zila.. I could talk about them for days but my review would be incredibly long at that point, and if that’s the case you might as well just read the book! As a group they all go through such a huge character arc, they learn so much about themselves and it was wonderful being able to see them change and grow throughout the story. Characters learning from their mistakes, and applying that new knowledge to future choices is such an important thing to see in a book that is so strongly based on its characters.The last third of the book or so took a turn I was NOT expecting and damn, was it crazy. I expected something wild to happen though because that was how The Illuminae Files were, and honestly I was hoping for something like this. I don’t want to spoil what happens so I’m going to leave out any details but like, it gets a little creepy actually. The way I felt reading Illuminae and being absolutely terrified at what was happening/what could happen some day, that’s exactly the feeling I had reading Aurora Rising. Amie and Jay are so good at their craft, they truly know how to bring out the right emotions in you to force you to keep reading, to find out what happens.“But I believe of all the places I have not fit, I fit here a little better.”Whether you like Science Fiction books or not I think Aurora Rising is worth giving a chance to. It is so much more than just about space and Sci-Fi, it’s about friendship and the bonds it takes to make or break it. It’s about family and what you will and won’t do for them. It’s about finding yourself and finding your place in this world.
Top reviews from other countries
Viciousbooknerd
Die beiden Autoren können einen auch nicht enttäuschen!
Reviewed in Germany on January 24, 2023
Osvaldo Rico
Impresionante idea que entretiene
Reviewed in Mexico on December 21, 2020
Osvaldo Rico
Reviewed in Mexico on December 21, 2020
En cuanto a la historia, es interesante volver a leer algo de Amie y Hay (después de Illuminae Goles), pero creo que a esta historia de Aurora le hizo falta algunos detalles para hacerla más épica. Quizá algo que no me agradó fue encontrarme con una narrativa normal, cómo otros libros y creo que estos dos autores pueden dar más que eso.
Aún así, el libro es entretenido y te deja con ganas de leer el siguiente
Images in this review
Catia Marques
What an amazing space opera!
Reviewed in Spain on September 29, 2021
Catia Marques
Reviewed in Spain on September 29, 2021
Images in this review
@reading_4fun
A ride in space looking for the truth
Reviewed in Canada on June 24, 2020