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GEMINA Discussion *SPOILERS AHEAD*
Have you finished GEMINA yet? If you have, I am SURE you want to talk about it!
So here are some starter questions, but feel free to ask some in the comments and i'll add them!
Please be repectful of other opinions. Disagreeing is fine. Being critical is fine. But please do not attack others!
Who is your favorite character?
How awesome were those illustrations?
Who do you think is security footage guy?
What was your favorite scene?
At what point did you see that one big twist?
What do you hope for in Book 3?
What would you do to read the next book earlier?




Who is your favorite character?
One of the things about GEMINA is that I think I had more characters I was in love with overall than in ILLUMINAE. I loved Nik and Hannah to pieces, and I even have a soft spot for Lt. Falk -- I didn't want him to win, but he was a wonderful, wonderful bad guy. I think my favorite character is Ella, though. She was a powerful character with a strong voice and I loved her from the first page.
How awesome were those illustrations?
Marie Lu's work was the cherry on top of a delicious book sundae. The illustrations were immersive for me, and I felt like I was really getting to know Hannah through them. And getting a sense of what Heimdall was like.
Who do you think is security footage guy?
I am almost certain that it's Ezra. I just got that sense from the voice of that "character". I did not think this at all in the last book, but I definitely had this occur to me during my read, independently of being asked!
What was your favorite scene?
Jackson sacrificing himself for Hanna is up there. But I think AIDAN having simultaneous conversations with Nik and Hanna was marvelous. Definitely one of the high points of the book for me.
At what point did you see that one big twist?
"We're having conversations with Hannah and Nik! At the same time! Each one claims the other one died!" Yeah, that was about it. Although I had some suspicions that some wacky hinjinks would occur based on all of the times we heard some variation of "It's basically technological magic keeping this wormhole stable, I barely know how we manage it." (Which I honestly loved, btw. Wormholes! Complicated science! Shenanigans! ❤ )
What do you hope for in Book 3?
Two more lovely main characters. I kind of hope they go back to Kerenza and AIDAN figures out some kind of crazy solution to warp them across the galaxy.
What would you do to read the next book earlier?
I would write a sonnet expressing my love for the magnificent world Jay and Amie have created. And then I would read it on video and publish it to youtube. In my Burt Macklin costume.
Who is your favorite character?
That is so hard - I really loved them all. Nik is def a new book boyfriend. Hanna is super cool and I love all that she learned from her dad 😭 Ella's voice was AMAZING and brilliant and not a stereotype at all. They were all so fantastic.
But if I have to pick one, it is probably Nik.He is so complex and funny. He kept surprising me in great ways.
But AIDAN is still my favorite character of the entire series. I squeed when he showed up up again.
How awesome were those illustrations?
The most awesome. Marie Lu is perfection. I loved her style and they added so much to it! They were so lucky that she was able to do them!
Who do you think is security footage guy?
I think it is Ezra. Thinking back to Illuminae, that means he was VERY deprecating on those, but that fits his character really well. I can imagine him being super squeamish with the aliens and Kady saying she'll have AIDAN do it, but very snarkily.
What was your favorite scene?
That is a hard one. I would have to say the chat when Ella kept changing Nik's name.
At what point did you see that one big twist?
Right away. I knew they wouldn't do that, because they didn't in the first book. I also have read enough about wormholes (plus the name of the book). I was pretty proud of myself.
What do you hope for in Book 3?
MORE DEATH!
What would you do to read the next book earlier?
I'd say transfer my entire bank account to the authors...but it isn't very much. So...uh...I'd bake cookies? And let them take any books from my bookshelves.
AIDAN is definitely my favorite character in the series. He might be one of my absolute favorite characters/anything in any story ever! The way he speaks is just so absolutely beautiful that I had to pause and read lines to my husband. <3 Some of my favorite AIDAN parts are the <ERROR> codes. They were like breadcrumbs to the twist. A example that I adored is when AIDAN says something like, "At least they are together. <ERROR>" Because they weren't. I loved every instance of that, and I actually used that as an example to one of my CPs about using breadcrumbs to help lead readers to a hidden conclusion. Other amazing AIDAN stuff: the binary code. I spent like 20 minutes typing it out into a converter to see if it said anything (it did :-D). And of course I love the moral ambiguities of a computer that feels justified in murdering an entire ship of people. Obviously, I could go on forever about AIDAN.....
I already answered my favorite character (AIDAN) in another response, but I have to add that I love all of the main characters introduced so far. They are so fleshed out!
I wanted to talk about my favorite part, and that's when AIDAN was describing what Hanna and Nik were doing at the same time with Hanna's actions on the left, and Nik's on the left. I think this very easily could have gotten annoying, but the authors did it so well that at one point, I literally gasped and came to tears because I thought the execution was so perfect. Here's what made it work so well:
Anyway, repeating information could have very quickly gotten boring, but instead, all the little things I mentioned above made this my favorite part, and IMO, one of the most exciting parts of the story.
The illustrations are absolutely perfect. I don't listen to audiobooks, but I'm curious how the art is conveyed in the audiobook, because I just can't imagine it having the same effect. I loved Hanna's art and comics; it definitely helped set this apart from Illuminae and it helped flesh Hanna out as a character. More importantly (and this is why I question how the audiobook can really have the same effect), the blood stain was bloody brilliant (pun intended). It was there from the start, the clipnote did not tell you whose blood it was, and it grew as the story went on. It was a weird little visual cue to remind the reader that something bad was going to happen. Every time I saw the blood, I wondered who was going to get shot and whether or not they would survive. I loved having that shadow growing and looming over me every time I turned a page in what was Hanna's journal.
One thing I would like to see... I love stories with happy endings. I wanted Hanna and Nik to survive and get together. I wanted so desperately for Ella to be ok. So, I was happy with the ending, but at the same time, I know a story can be better when there are deaths that matter or you're at least left with a bittersweet ending. SO, one thing I would really like to see is Hanna and Nik (especially Nik) affected by what they experienced. Both of them had someone they really cared for die in their arms. Nik not only saw Hanna die, but also Ella die too. Furthermore, they know that the parallel world does exist. There is a world in which there's a dead Hanna, dead Nik, dead Ella, and the Hypatia is never able to contact the station. There does exist a world in which there was no happy ending at all. Even though our characters don't live in that world, they still experienced parts of that universe, and I would just love to see them hurt, upset, heartsick over what happened (and didn't happen because they were lucky to live in a different parallel world.)