Review of "Across the Universe"

"Across the Universe"
Beth Revis


5

Pub. Date: January 11, 2011
Pages: 416

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.

I LOVED "Across the Universe"! I heard so much hype about this book, making me a bit nervous to be completely honest, but it totally lives up to all the amazing reviews. Beth Revis does a fantastic job showing the dangers of living in a society controlled by only one man, especially in a situation where people’s emotions are being stifled. I liked how the secrets of Godspeed were slowly unraveled throughout the book; there was always one more secret that needed to be exposed.

I'm not usually a fan of split narratives in a book; they tend to slow down the story for me. I like when one characters tells the story from beginning to end, but I wasn't bothered by it in this case. I liked knowing what Elder was thinking because I don't think I would have liked him as a character. I don't know if I could have trusted his actions. Amy perspective was necessary because I don't think I would have understood her actions. As someone who is not a runner, I wouldn't have understood why she had to run all the time. I also wouldn't have understood her acceptance at the end of the book without incite into her thoughts.

I love books that reveal the problems of a Utopian society where everyone is the same and they live without choices or freewill. If you are a fan of sci-fi or books that discuss freewill, then this is a must read. There is a bit of romance in the book, but for me it didn't overpower the real purpose of the book. It was just enough to make the characters real, while not detracting from the overall mystery of the book. I can see this being one of the top books released in 2011; I hope that this just one of many fantastic books released this year!
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