Across the Universe

Beth Revis

Across the Universe #1

Summary:

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

Plot:

I thought this was a very good story, it was intriguing and really had me wondering what was going to happen next. However one thing I didn’t like was the descriptions and explanations of everything on the ship. I know some people might find them interesting, but I just couldn’t make myself focus on them and found it boring to read about all the technical stuff. I would’ve liked if these details had been more integrated into the story instead of a monologue explaining everything. Except for that the writing was pretty good, the story was well-paced and very interesting, although it got a little predictable after a while.

Characters:

I liked the characters in this book, but I didn’t connect or relate to them as much as I would’ve liked. They were all believable, some surprised me, while others were more predictable, but all of them had some bad and some good in them, which I really liked. My favourite character was probably Elder’s best friend: Harley. He showed the most emotion in my opinion, and I really liked that about him. The main characters are likable, but not perfect, and both have a lot of self-doubt, but still manage to make the right choices, most of the time. The chemistry between the characters were also handled pretty well, although the romance was a bit sudden in my opinion.

Who should read this:

13+, I definitely recommend caution with this one. There’s a lot of sexual content, but it’s not natural, so it may confuse younger readers. Also, some pretty scary scenes of violence. There’s very mild swearing, but on the ship they use a lot of slang terms so the swear words aren’t exactly what we’re used to. If you enjoy dystopian and sci-fi, you might like this, as it combines the two, but if you prefer them seperately or only enjoy one I’m sure there are better options.

My rating:

I thought this was a good story, with good characters, but some parts bored me. I might have expected a bit much, but overall I really enjoyed this book, especially the idea of combining sci-fi with dystopian 3/5.

Quote:

“This is the secret of the stars, I tell myself. In the end, we are alone. No matter how close you seem, no one else can touch you.