Book Review: Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Posted On July 30, 2019

Hey everyone! Welcome back to my blog, where today, I’ll be reviewing a book. Specifically, Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff.

I haven’t put up a book review on this blog since March, and I thought it was time to change that. I don’t know how often I’ll be putting these reviews up, but I’m going to try to do it a little more frequently than once every four months. I’m definitely not going to review every book I read, but I’m aiming for about one a month right now. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, let’s get into the review of Aurora Rising

Star Rating

4.75/5 stars

Summary

Set in the year 2380, this book starts out with Tyler Jones, star pupil of the Aurora Academy, saving a mystery girl from a spacecraft everyone thought had disappeared forever. As a result of this act of heroism, Tyler misses the Draft, the ceremony where, as the school’s top performer, he would have had his pick of squad members. As it is, he ends up stuck as the leader on a team made up mostly of the rejects of the Aurora Academy. Throughout the book, we get POV chapters from Ty and his team of 5 misfits, as well as the girl he saved—Aurora (Auri for short). Together, the 7 of them might be key to saving the entire galaxy from a danger no one was even aware of.

The Review (Non-Spoiler Section)

I’d already read and loved the Illuminae Files by this same author duo, so I went into this book pretty sure that I was going to love this one, too—and boy, was I right. I love the characters and their dynamics. They’re all so sassy and so distinct from one another. In the beginning, all of these characters pretty much hate each other, and, slowly, they come to respect each other and work as a team. You might even call them friends.

I liked how this book was (mostly) pretty light on the romance. It was there, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Though I will admit that the reason I gave this book 4.75 stars instead of 5 stars is exclusively because of something that has to do with romance—but I’ll talk more about that in the spoilery section of this review.

I really liked the worldbuilding in this book, particularly in relation to the different alien races. I liked learning a little about their different customs and perspectives. I’m hoping we’ll get to see even more of that in the next book.

Overall, I thought this book was awesome. It was fun and action-packed and surprising. There were some twists in there that I legitimately did not see coming. I would definitely recommend it if you like sci-fi.

Major Spoilers Past This Point—Read at Your Own Risk.

Okay, I have to get this off my chest before we go any further, because it’s the only thing I can think of that I legitimately didn’t like in this book. There were probably a couple of other things that kind of bothered me, but they don’t stand out in my memory (and, well, I’m writing this review 2 weeks after finishing, during which time I’ve read like 5 other books, so forgive me for my imperfect memory).

That thing was Cat’s death—or her assimilation into the weird plant creature, or whatever you want to call it. Actually, that in and of itself wasn’t really what bothered me. Of course I wanted Cat to live, and that whole scene of her slowly being consumed, then shoving herself back into power to save her friends—it was very touching, and although I don’t cry in books, I was really feeling a lot of emotions as I read that part. Then her last thought was about how everything was okay because Tyler loved her—and I just. No.

I get that it was supposed to be touching and all that, but it really bugs me that Cat is such an awesome character, and yet, the reason she felt validated at the end was because of a guy. Don’t get me wrong, Tyler’s a great person, but I still wish Cat’s last thoughts as herself could have been about literally anyone or anything else. If you’ve read this book (which I hope you have if you’re reading this section because I just spoiled a huge part of the ending), let me know what your thoughts were on this whole situation. Am I the only one who was annoyed by it?

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That’s all I had to talk about for this review! I hope you enjoyed it. If you’ve read the book, let’s discuss down in the comments! If you haven’t let me know if you plan on reading it, or if you’ve read the Illuminae Files.

Thanks for hanging out with me, everyone! I’ll see you next time.

-Ariel