Across the Universe by Beth Revis
"Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed. She expects to wake up on a new planet, 300 years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed's scheduled landing, Amy's cryo chamber is unplugged, and she is nearly killed.
Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed's passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader, and Elder, his rebellious and brilliant teenage heir.
Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she? All she knows is that she must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again."- summary from Amazon
OMG this book was amazing. I mean, really. It's such a wonderful debut with fascinating characters and an interesting look at supposed perfect societies. Revis does a great job weaving romance, sci-fi, dystopia, suspense, and mystery all into one novel.
I almost want to call this commercial literary fiction- Revis explores emotions, how we run (or could run) our societies, and there's such depth to the novel, but it doesn't get dense. In fact, I think it makes all the more compelling. The romance and murder mystery balance it out, but also helps to bring up the questions Revis wants to spend time on.
I really enjoyed the dual narrative. Both characters are well fleshed out and have flaws, as do the secondary characters. Revis does a very good job with characterization and each one is unique. Also, I wanted to say how much I HATED Eldest, though I can see why he did what he did. But I still wanted to punch him and kill him most of the time.
Overall, I absolutely loved this book and I can't wait to see where the sequels take us. Be prepared to gasp a lot in the last 100 pages- tons of lies are revealed and it's all OMGWTF. Definitely a book to pick up.
The cover is reversible (with a more manly cover) and shows a diagram of the spaceship Godspeed- watch my vlog from yesterday where I show it off on my ARC version.
FTC: Received ARC from publisher. Link above is an Amazon Associate link; any profit goes toward funding contests.
Posts
Wasn't it great? I really HOPE there's a sequel. I agree about the dual storylines--really well done, and two very distinct voices. And I liked that there's at least one (somewhat) traditional sci-fi novel coming out this year! Something that isn't dystopian (though I heart dystopian books).
ReplyDeleteI keep getting intrigued by this book, even though I don't usually read Sci-Fi.
ReplyDeleteI might add it to my Spring-Book Shopping list :D
awesome review, as usual.
*g*
I'm reading Across the Universe at the moment, and although I'm only about 50 pages in I'm loving it already!
ReplyDeleteI'm loving the dystopian aspect especially, with the whole Keepers/Shippers/Feeders hiararchy.
And Godspeed sounds amazing, even though there hasn't been too much said about it at the moment.
I just bought this book, so I'm glad to hear how amazing it is. I get to meet Beth in person in February so I've got to hurry up and read this one. Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna have to check this one out. I can be a bit of a sci-fi fan.
ReplyDelete