SciFiMonth Review: Across the Universe – Beth Revis

I N F O R M A T I O N

Title: Across the Universe

Author: Beth Revis

My Rating:

 

 

S U M M A R Y

Amy and her parents have been frozen, and placed on the spaceship, Godspeed. In three hundred years time, they will be woken up, ready to explore a shiny new planet they will call home.

Or so Amy is told. Because she is woken up fifty years early, her parents still locked in their icy slumber. The ship she is on has its own society and rules, and she can’t help but feel alone in this busy, other-worldly place. Of course, it doesn’t help that there is a murderer on board, and getting to grips with the new way of living aboard the ship becomes a lot harder than it seems.

R E V I E W

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I was going to. The summary on the back cover seems to overplay the romance, when in fact there is very little of it in the book (which is good, because too much romance and I tend to get bored). There could have easily been a love triangle, but there wasn’t – which sets this book apart from the rest. The story had a wonderful plot, with many twists and turns, and it was written very well. The alternating chapters between Amy and Elder’s perspectives worked well, and when there were cliffhangers with one character, I had to keep reading to find out what was going to happen!

There were some very lovely descriptions of Amy’s situation at the beginning of the novel, which took skill as it was a point in the story that could have gone wrong, but Beth Revis writes it spectacularly.

The characters were very three-dimensional, all with their own personalities and situations. I LOVED Harley, but he also made me very sad. The most shocking part with him (no spoilers!) was very abrupt and I didn’t see it coming, even though with hindsight, I could see all the signs.

Another point that pleased me about this book is that it is clear Revis has put a lot of effort and knowledge intot the story, but even with all the sciencey stuff (that’s the technical term, honest) it is easy to understand. Since I was trying this book for #RRSciFiMonth, I was quite worried that maybe I would be a little bit out of my depth and swamped with scientific terminology that I didn’t understand, but Across the Universe is a very accessible novel.

This makes for a very happy reader, and I did enjoy the book thoroughly. I will be ordering the rest of the trilogy from my library as soon as I can!