* * * ½
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.
The XO and I long ago decided that we would be first in line
if there was ever an opportunity for civilians to explore the universe and
settle on newly discovered planet. Of
course I am willing to volunteer because in my mind it will be this amazingly
perfect long term vacation (on a super shiny new spaceship with all the
amenities you can imagine) where I get to read and eat bon bons all day in
bed. Wait, on second thought, that’s my
life now. Well except instead of a super
shiny space ship with all the amenities I am living in a 20 year old house that
is getting to the stage where all the “amenities” need to be replaced. And instead of bon bons I am eating carrot
sticks and almonds because dairy and milk chocolate are a big no no. Oh, and instead of all day in bed, it’s all
day following my kids around while I feed, bathe, dress and diaper them. So really, it’s no wonder I have decided to
volunteer to go on the pretty shiny spaceship.
All I have to say to Beth Revis after reading Across the
Universe is this: Darn you for crapping
on my shiny spaceship fantasy.
In Across the Universe the voyage doesn’t take place on a
pretty shiny spaceship and the voyage itself is most definitely not a long-term
vacation. The ship is definitely high
tech but it’s not pretty. And the people
living on the ship (not counting those that are cryogenically frozen) work long
and hard to keep their small civilization going.
I don’t read a lot of Sci-Fi so I am not sure if this harsh
thought out reality is common in Sci-Fi stories that include century
ships. But I can say this tough and
non-glossy view is pretty common in the dystopian genre. And since this story could be classified as
dystopian/sci-fi/mystery, the over all feel of the story works.
What I loved most about this book was the struggle that both
Amy and Elder had learning that right and wrong isn’t as black and white as we
would like. No one answer works for
everyone and there are repercussions for every decision you make, no matter how
good your intentions.
The only complaint that I had with the story over all was
that I figured out what was happening before it actually happened. I am not usually able to do that but for some
reason I was able to with this book. It
was kind of like someone telling you what your Christmas present is right
before you open it. I felt a little
deflated even thought I still love the story.
In the end, if you are fan of Sci-Fi and Dystopians then
definitely read Across The Universe.
Nat
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