Title: Across the UniverseAuthor: Beth Revis
Published: January 11th 2011 by Razorbill
Pages: 398
Price: Amazon $10.48, Book Depository $9.67
Source: Bought
Rating: 4.5/5
Synopsis: 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.
Initial Thoughts: I was very excited to read this. It sounded like a really interesting idea, and it was played up a lot around the web.
Review: I read this book within two days. It would have been faster, but I happen to be held back by my need for sleep and education. (In fact, those things tend to shove their noses in my business far too often.) From the first page, I was drawn in. It was a nice change, because lately I've been reading only books that are sub-par. Also, I heard somewhere that there would be a sequel.
At first, the characters seemed kind of average. They seemed like real people, but not exactly anything terribly interesting. When they actually met, I felt like their interaction was pretty great. Amy turned out to be pretty hilarious after she had been frozen for oh-so-many years. I felt like before she was kind of bland, but it could just be that we didn't see enough of her to really know.
I loved the way that it switched perspectives. You see this a lot in books, I know, but it really seemed to fit in this book. The summary makes it seem like it's mostly about Amy, but I think the focus was more on Elder and the community on the ship. The mysteries were really crazy - I really had no clue what happened until the last twenty pages. It might be because I have a tendency to assume the obvious.
The story itself was really interesting. It had more of a science-fiction feel than the fantasy that's popular with the kids these days, and I for one am glad. The "girl falls in love with vampire/werewolf/zombie/faerie/some other mythological creature" thing was getting kind of old. I would really love to see more science fiction young adult books out there.
Quick Review: This book was a nice change of pace from your average vampire romance young adult novel. The characters and plot were very well done. I definitely recommend it to anyone with functioning eyes or a device with which to listen to audio books. And I know this article claims to be written by Tiffany, but don't be deceived - I, Michaela, wrote this. I was just not signed in at the time.
