Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Info: Website | Twitter | Facebook
Release Date: January 11th, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 398
Format: Hardcover
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Age Group: Young Adult
Challenge: 2011 Debut Author

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.

This is one of the best reads I've had my hands on. First, there's the cover. At first I didn't notice the two people, but once I did I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And then you have the ship design on the back if you got the hardcover with the covering that comes off. I like when publishers add that to the story because it makes it more 3D and a lot easier for me to picture.

Second, it isn't like the other science fiction works I've read. At first when I saw that it was in space I was thinking about aliens and such, and I already went through my alien phase with Ender's Game. But the idea behind the story was increasingly original, I loved it! The idea of being in space for a certain amount of time and the freezing of the body's and the system that was set up.

Right away I knew there was something going on (especially when Elder started saying how Hitler was a great ruler, that really set off alarms and then the Season) and my suspicion only increased with the odd behavior of everyone.

When it comes to romance novels I always want to know what the guy is thinking and so I liked how Beth started interchanging the narrations between Elder and Amy.


I cried, I laughed, and I just had a good time reading it. It was really a good story. She constructed the story in a way that when the ending came you literally did not see it coming! I love the surprises and the twist of stories and this one really had me going in a whirlwind. The final pages I read with my mouth wide open.


Beth did an especially fantastic job in description and really capturing the torment that Amy was going through and how she felt about everything from the first page to the last page. Elder, I felt so bad for him. He grew up confused and believing things. There plenty of times I just wanted to jump into the pages and hit him.


Why it received a four was because I was left confused in so many places that I don't even know if Beth will cover come the second book. Don't get me wrong, she did a wonderful job tying up a lot of the major plot-driven events, but for the most part I felt like she could have dived into other areas. Though, I am looking forward to the second book.


Original, mysterious, twisted, romantic, and heart racing it was a ride that I would go on again.