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Aurora Rising
by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

• Genre: YA Sci-fi
• Published: May 5, 2019

Hey, let’s talk about the YA Sci-fi book, Aurora Rising by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I know-I know, I’m late to the party. But thanks to BookTok, I picked it up. 

While I do have the book, I ended up listening to the audio version, because the sample was really good! And I’m so happy I did, because the voice-actors were excellent.

It’s the night before the Aurora Academy draft. The draft is where the squad leaders or alphas get to choose their team. Tyler was all wind up and couldn’t sleep. Not that he had anything to be worried about; he’s top of the class. 

Rather than sleep, he decides to get some flight time around the mysterious “Fold”. When he decides he’s had enough and heading back to the academy, he runs into an abandoned vessel. And this vessel carried only one live and surviving soul on board, Aurora. 

By rescuing Aurora, Tyler nearly dies and misses the draft. So he gets stuck with the worst team. Ever. A band of true misfits. 

Let me introduce them to you:

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• The Alpha (leader): Tyler
• The Face (the negotiator): Scarlett – Tyler’s twin sister 
• The Ace (pilot): Cat – Scarlett’s best-friend
• The Brains: Zila – she really is brilliant 
• The Gearhead (computer/systems genius): Fin
• The Tank (war/combat mastermind): Kal 
• The Mystery Girl: Aurora

On the cover it says, “They’re not the heroes we wanted. They are just the ones we could find.” And boy, are they a mess. 

This book has been compared time and time again to Guardians of the Galaxy. While yes it’s a group of epic weirdos, it’s so much more than that. It’s an epic adventure to figure out who Aurora is and how they all come together to make that happen. 

This book is non-stop and fast paced. Just when you think things finally slow down for our anti-heroes, nope. No. Not even a little bit. And then Chapter 33 hits, and your soul crushes, and you can’t mend it back. 

Aurora Rising gets 5 Nerd Glasses out of 5. 

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