Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Series: Across the Universe #1
Published by Razorbill on January 11, 2011
Genres: Dystopian
Pages: 398
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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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.

Beth Revis’ debut novel is definitely a unique story but one that I had trouble getting into.  After about the first 100 pages I was hooked but it took me a while to get there.  Hopefully the next book in this series picks up faster!

Amy does not want to be cryogenically frozen for 301 years but she doesn’t really have a choice.  She loses even more of her freedom when she is woken up 50 years ahead of schedule.  Life aboard Godspeed is not what she imagined.  The leader is a dictator, the next leader, Elder, appeals to Amy way too much, and someone is killing the rest of the cryogenically frozen people.  Amy and Elder must figure out who it is and how to stop them before it is too late.

Amy and Elder didn’t really do it for me.  I didn’t understand Elder or his motives.  He said he wasn’t like Eldest, that he didn’t think like him but a lot of the time he did.  Amy was more of a free thinker but I never sympathized with her or really cared about what happened to her.  I wish they had both been more developed.  Same with Doc and Eldest.  I did like Harley though!

The plot was great once I got into it.  It seemed like nothing really happened for the first 100 pages and I was really bored with the story then.  Once the murders started though things got a lot better.  Although I did guess who the murderer was from the very beginning.

Overall, Across The Universe is a pretty good start to this trilogy and I will be checking out the next book, A Million Suns.  Maybe get this one from your library though before buying it.

What others are saying about Across the Universe:

Miss Page-Turner’s City of Books’ review: “The actual story of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is set in future and has many opportunities and inventions to offer, medical-wise for example.”

Ranting Dragon’s review: “While in no way would I really compare Across the Universeto a Golden Age classic, it has enough merits to stand its ground with ease in the modern market.”

Oh, The Book Feels’ review: “To be honest, it gave me the same emotions and fears that the Hunger Games series did — the whole not being in control of your existence and dictatorship and what not.”