Across the Universe by Beth Revise

 

Title: Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis

Length: 398 Pages

Genres: YA, Science Fiction, Dystopia 

Author's Website: http://bethrevis.com/

Synopsis: 

 A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

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.

(Cover Photo, Information and Synopsis from Goodreads)

 

Review: 

4.5/5 Stars

This is the first book I’ve read that could classify as ‘Sci-Fi’, so I was a little skeptical when I started reading. To be honest I was fully prepared not to like it; but in reality I couldn’t put it down. The more I read, the more I wanted to know about this complex world Beth Revis built inside the confines of the little ship. 

The story is from two people’s points of view—Amy and Elder’s. The chapters alternate, going back and forth between the two people. Both of these characters do a wonderful job at painting the world, in two completely different ways. Elder doesn’t think the world he lives in is odd, and Amy thinks nothing but. The clash of how these two react to situations, was wonderful to watch.

The mystery element is nothing to ignore either. Watching the mystery unfold was like watching a flower bloom, the way the author set it up. The pacing was nice, and the way the characters contrasted off each other was fun to watch.  Some of the culture in this ship makes you just go… who would ever think of that? These cultural aspects are just so wrong you can’t help but find them brilliant. 

At times when I was reading this, I started to feel claustrophobic. I could just imagine being in Amy’s situation, and I could imagine being confined to a ship. It’s safe to say that if I was ever offered a trip to another planet—I would not being going.