Across The Universe by Beth Revis

Released: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 398
Rating: 5/5  ;)


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.


ACROSS THE UNIVERSE was everything I thought it was going to be. The stark loneliness of space comes through loud and clear, and I've decided I never want to be cryogenically frozen!

So right away, Beth Revis brings you into the sci-fi aspect of the story with her detailed description of being cryogenically frozen. It was creepy, and lifelike and pretty plausible to my non-scientific brain. I immediately liked Amy, as well. She chooses to follow her parents into space, giving up everything she knows to be with her family. I would make the same decision – family’s everything to me. But she doesn’t go blindly, either. She’s upset, she doesn’t want to go. And that just makes her human. Unlike the people on Godspeed. The majority of them are crazy “normal” – few emotions, drone-like and complacent. Those who are called crazy, are the most normal people on the ship. Elder’s quite a naive character in the beginning, but with the introduction of Amy into his world, everything changes and he really begins to see that not everything is as it should be, especially when it concerns Eldest – a creepy tyrannical leader who believes he’s doing everything for the best of the ship. Not quite.

This isn’t just a purely character driven story, though they help make it amazing. The plot moves along at a quick pace, and there is so much information and backstory being slipped in that the story is constantly developing and becoming clear (including the mystery of who tried to kill Amy, and is out to kill the other frozens on board). Hints are given, and questions answered, and when everything is finally revealed it’s like “guh.” You just want to tell Amy that everything will be ok. Especially after one reveal! It really effects her relationships on the ship. But Amy’s tough, and Elder does a lot of growing up over the course of the book and yea. I want more.

I wouldn’t mind reading many more books that take place in the universe Beth Revis has created. It’s full of such incredibly rich detail and emotion. ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is a must read debut for sci-fi fans, and I highly recommend it to those who aren’t – it might just 
change your mind.