Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Tags: YA, sci-fi, dystopian, mystery, murder, secrets

Summary

Amy wasn’t planning on being nearly killed when she, her parents, and 97 other people are cryogenically frozen for a 300-year journey aboard a massive spaceship. But someone unfreezes her 50 years early, and she finds herself aboard a ship run by a tyrannical leader named Eldest. As Amy spends time with Eldest’s successor, a teenage boy named Elder, she discovers that the ship contains many secrets. What is Eldest hiding? Why is someone still killing the cryogenically frozen passengers? What’s wrong with the zombielike behavior of the ship’s residents?

Review

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is a heartpounding sci-fi/mystery by debut author Beth Revis. Whether or not you are a fan of science fiction, you’ll be pulled into the mysteries that the Godspeed contains, and this future world that Beth has so stunningly created for us readers.

Perhaps most impressive about this book is the development of the ship, Godspeed, and its inner workings and secrets. From reproduction to crop control to emotional stasis, the people who run this ship have created an eerily controlled dystopian environment. No concept is too complicated for a non-science person to understand. It creeps you out yet keeps you glued to the pages.

Amy and Elder are enjoyably well-rounded. Amy is headstrong but not annoyingly so, as many female protagonists have a tendency to be when faced with dramatic situations. Elder, likewise, is a sweetheart, with both his vulnerabilities and leadership. Other characters occasionally fall a bit unbelievably flat, such as Eldest’s unconvincingly one-dimensional villainy. Still, the pacing moves the story along nicely. Beth Revis makes use of the actual space on the page and crafts her sentences to appropriately reflect the amount of tension in the situations, adding to the mood.

The conclusion of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is explosive yet satisfyingly so, leaving you wanting the sequel. This book just might convince many readers to be interested in science fiction. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to Amy, Elder, and Godspeed next!

Similar Authors
Orson Scott Card

Writing: 4/5
Characters: 4/5
Plot: 4/5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5


Cover discussion: 4 out of 5 - The opposing heads kind of freak me out a little, but that sky is GORGEOUS. The astrophysics nerd within me swoons into a puddle of my own drool.

Razorbill / Jan. 11, 2011 / Hardcover / 400pp. / $17.99

ARC requested from author/publisher.

Waiting on Wednesday (80)

I generally try not to feature more than one book at a time on WoW posts, but several books that I have long been pining for finally revealed their covers recently, and I couldn't resist!

Across the Universe by Beth Revis
(Razorbill / Jan. 11, 2011)

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone—one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship—tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now, Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

I've known Beth from her blog before she got her book deal and became a mega-star author. Doesn't her debut novel sound fantastic? A murder mystery aboard a spaceship--gotta love me some good sci-fi! And what a gorgeous cover. I was so anxious, hoping that she'd get a really good one, and this one has a total movie poster vibe to it that would look fantastic blown up and hung on a wall. I'm an astrophysics nerd, so I'm absolutely gaga over the bottom half of that cover, and the top half is creepily sci-fi. You can read Chapter 1 at the book's website too! Yayyy, Beth!

Fall for Anything by Courtney Summers
(St. Martin's Griffin / Dec. 21, 2010)

When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? When she meets Culler Evans, a former student of her father’s and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. He seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie’s vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on… but some questions should be left unanswered.

Courtney's books are auto-buys for me. I don't care if she chooses to write about boarding schools, or vampires, or rainbow-striped unicorns... I will read it. So happy she has another book coming out soon!

Where She Went by Gayle Forman
(Dutton / April 19, 2011)

The sequel to If I Stay, from Adam's point of view 3 years later. Adam, now a rising rock star, and Mia, a successful cellist, reunite in New York and reconnect after the horrific events that tore them apart when Mia almost died in a car accident three years earlier.

There's not much about this book out there yet (except for the teaser tour that's been going on these past few weeks), but this is an absolute must for me. If I Stay had me bawling for hours and hours, and, uh, this cover? Total cover love. Yes, I'm aware it's another picture of a female model, but I don't care, I love the saturation and the wind in her hair and the bluish-gray background.

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I am SO UTTERLY EXCITED for these three books!