Review: Across the Universe

Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Release Date: 11 Jan. 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 398
Rates: The Best to Love

Synopsis 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.

My Thoughts

Amy is stuck on Godspeed, trapped there, and with nothing she can do about it. I felt helpless along with her. I wanted to pluck her off the ship and put her back on earth. Fix all of the unfair circumstances shoved at her. She was completely helpless and scared in the darkness she was living in for what was supposed to be 300 years, but then someone tried to kill her!

Elder may live in the future on a ship that he is the future leader of, but he talks, and acts, and reacts, as any other teenager. He gets frustrated and wound up as regular 16 year old boys do. Honestly, he sounds more real than nearly all other boy characters I've read about, and he lives in the future, with huge responsibilities, so there are higher chances of him appearing unusual. He's a fantastically crafted character. All of the characters are. Even the characters you hate you eventually understand them.

I was close to saying this book is character strong, but it's more than that. the unique ship and changes in the future are described in detail without dragging out descriptions. I can see the ship clearly in my mind's eye and imagine the people that live there. The book is also full of shocking and intense information that once revealed feels quite obvious. Each new revelation had me shouting "What?!" before exclaiming "Duh! Of course, of course!"

I want the second book in my hands right now! I suggest you go and pick this up before the second book comes out. You will not be disappointed. Books in space I'm not usually interested in, but this one is incredible.