Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis
Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopia, Young Adult
Series? Across the Universe #1

“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.”

Content Warnings

death, near drowning, drowning, suicide, rape

I’m not a huge fan of science fiction, and I’ve only ever read a few books in this genre, but Across the Universe was an amazing book. There wasn’t as much romance as I expected, coming from the first line of the summary: “a love out of time,” but I still enjoyed it. Honestly, there didn’t need to be any more romance, so it was nice on that part.

The first scene in the story was really intense and it caught my attention. It was a nice way to pull readers in, and the description with how Amy and her parents were cryogenically frozen was done well.

The first few chapters were slightly slow, and by the time we get to the part where Amy is unplugged, we’re a pretty good amount of the way through the book. I know the setting and background had to be set up and whatnot, but I think the pacing was just slightly slow at the beginning.

I liked how the chapters switched perspectives, and we got to see how the other person was feeling or what they thought about a certain situation. It was pretty easy to tell who was narrating at any certain point, the characters voices were distinct.

Okay, the Season was. . . something. First of all, it sounds really gross. Like, just a bunch of people carelessly mating. And it’s literally everywhere! In the streets, in the fields, and it’s like they have no other emotions or sensible thoughts in their heads. You have to step over and around couples just to walk down the road! I thought the scene with Amy and Luthe was slightly unnecessary. I don’t think it added much to the story, besides another reason for Amy’s ever-growing hatred towards him.

The characters were done well and realistically. Elder definetely seemed like a teenage boy, especially in his thoughts towards Amy. Though, I did think they were a little much sometimes. With other things though, Elder didn’t always know what he wanted, or how to achieve something, but that didn’t mean that he stopped trying.

Amy’s emotions were done well, in regards to being angry about being unplugged, and everything with Eldest. One thing though, was the fact that she addressed her father as “Daddy.” I don’t have a problem with this, it just seemed slightly. . . young, I guess. I don’t want to say childish, but I don’t really hear a lot of 17-year-olds calling their fathers “Daddy.”

Harley was my favorite character. I like his nickname he gave to Amy, “Little Fish” because her hair reminded him of the little koi fish. His fascination with the stars is both enthralling and really sad, knowing why he was looking at them so much. I was not expecting what Harley did to happen, and I was really sad when it did.

Orion was. . . creepy to say the least. I figured there was something off with him when Amy saw the long scar on the back of his neck, and once she figured out the mystery, it made so much sense.

Across the Universe was an exciting science fiction read, with plenty of plot twists and surprises. I really enjoyed reading it and once I got through the slow bits, I couldn’t put it down. (Though I had to, unfortunately.)

My Rating: 4/5 dragons

Have you read Across the Universe? What did you think of my review?
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