Review : Across The Universe by Beth Revis

Summary (from Goodreads)

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.

Personal Thoughts

Science-fiction is a genre that is very rare in YA books, so when I read the premise of Across The Universe, I was intrigued and fascinated. I couldn't wait to dive into the book when I finally got hold of a copy. Fortunately, Across The Universe lived up to my expectations.

Across The Universe starts off with Amy and her parents going through a process that will freeze them and send them aboard a spaceship, Godspeed. They are expected to be awakened 300 years later, when Godspeed will finally land on their destination, a new planet. However, things don't go as planned and Amy finds herself awake 50 years earlier by someone on board the ship who tried to kill her and is now also killing the other 'frozens'.

I really enjoyed Amy's character. When she was awakened, she's completely lost. She felt confusion and she was actually furious. All she wanted was to be with her parents and for this reason she didn't bother to hide her anger towards everyone on the ship. On top of that, Eldest, the leader of Godspeed, labelled her a freak since she was different from everyone else on board and Eldest wanted to keep the presence of the frozen people from the past a secret. This further infuriated her. Her wrath was understandable. I would have also felt confounded and vulnerable if I were in her place. In my opinion, she handled herself very well considering her situation. When no one was ready to investigate the deaths of the frozens, she took it into her own hands to try to find the culprit by herself. Unlike the other members on board Godspeed, Amy questioned what was going on and she was driven to find out what was really going on. Her strong nature was one of the most appealing characteristics of hers. It also made her easy to like and relate to. However, Amy also had flaws. Sometimes, her willingness to go against Eldest bothered me a little. You see, Eldest was kind of a scary character and he threatened to kill her off if she caused any disturbances. She knew that Eldest was the kind of man who would keep his word, yet she wandered around doing exactly what Eldest asked her not to do. Wouldn't it have been better if she had listened to him because Godspeed was HIS ship. My second problem with Amy was her calling her father "Daddy". For some reason that annoyed me because it seemed childish. I thought only little girls called their dad "Daddy". I ,actually, managed to overlook these issues I had with her, so in the end, I did like her character.

The book is also told in the POV of Elder, the future leader of Godspeed. He was a boy of 17 and the author did a fabulous job at giving him a distinct voice. One problem that usually arises from dual POV is the lack of distinction between the male and the female characters. In this case, Elder's and Amy's personalities are completely different and it's easy to differentiate between the two POVs. Elder was a definite enigma. The guy knew nothing about life on Earth since Eldest kept secrets from him. Plus, the fact that he had to lead the ship in the future felt a little too much to him. So, he was a little ignorant and I thought that he didn't do much to find out the truth. I'm not so sure whether I liked Elder or not.

The romance in the book was not to my tastes. Elder actually lusted after frozen Amy when he saw her naked body in the tank. That just creeped me out little. I also felt like the only reason Elder fell for Amy was because she was so different from everyone else on the ship, but that was expected since the people on board had no personality whatsoever because they were drugged into being that way. Nevertheless, I'm glad that they didn't fall into a relationship too fast.

The world building in Across The Universe was really well executed. I loved learning about everything going on on the ship. There's one tiny think that irked and disturbed me : there's a period, known as The Season, when the passengers just started having wild sex in public, not caring about what's going on around them. That was just ... weird and disturbing. They behaved almost like animals and honestly, it was gross especially if you're a reader who pictures everything in your head.

Beth Revis threw in some twists here and there that I wasn't expecting. It was exciting and entertaining to see the mysteries surrounding Godspeed unravel. The book started out a little slow which bored me a little at first, but eventually the pace picked up and I found myself enjoying the plot.

If after reading vast number of paranormal stories you want to try something new for your reading, then I suggest you read Across The Universe. The book wasn't perfect, but it turned out to be an intriguing and attention-piquing story.

Rating

Cover : 5/5

Plot : 3/5

Characters : 3/5

Writing : 3/5