Review – Across the Universe (Across the Universe, Book 1) by Beth Revis (4/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Science Ficiton
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: January 11, 2011
ISBN-13: 978-1595143976
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Across the Universe trilogy
Source: eGalley through NetGalley.com
Rating: 4/5 stars
This is a young adult science fiction/dystopian book. I have been overloaded on dystopias over the last couple years and have stopped reading a lot of them. However, I really enjoyed this one. It was well written, engaging, and had a very intriguing premise. This is the first book in a trilogy, all of the books in the trilogy have been released.
Amy is seventeen years old and has decided to join her parents as cargo on the spaceship Godspeed. In three hundred years Godspeed is supposed to reach a new planet for humans to colonize. Many centuries have past and a sixteen year old boy known as Elder is being groomed to take over leadership of Godspeed from the Eldest. However when Amy is accidentally awoken early things change for both her and Elder. Whoever woke Amy was trying to kill her and she needs to figure who the potential murderer was. Amy and Elder struggle to unravel the secrets behind the society of Godspeed.
As with all young adult books there is a bit of a romance in here, but it definitely wasn’t the driver for the story. The largest driver was the mystery behind how the society on the spaceship had developed into what it did and all the secrets surrounding that.
There is a lot of amazing world-building and some awesome plot twists in this book. It is a very engaging story and impossible to put down. The book is mainly a mystery with heavy sci-fi and thriller overtones.
Just watching what society aboard Godspeed has evolved into is fascinating. As the mystery unravels and you see why the society was structured this way the whole thing makes a sort of creepy and eerie sense.
Amy and Elder are both incredibly engaging characters. Amy is a normal 17 year old girl who is thrust into a position of being extraordinary just because of her status of being Earth-born. Elder has basically been brain-washed by Eldest from a young age and fights against everything he has ever known to make sense of the mysteries Amy uncovers.
The book was very well written, easy to read, and very engaging. It ends at a great spot and I am super curious to see how things play out in A Million Suns.
Overall a fantastic science fiction/dystopian/mystery. I really really enjoyed it a lot. I loved the world-building on Godspeed and the engaging characters. Highly recommend to fans of YA science fiction. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely continue reading the series.
This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge
