Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

The Plot: 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. (Summary from goodreads.com)

First sentence: "Daddy said:, 'Let Mom go first'."

Cover: I don't have the hardback edition portrayed here, but the UK paperback edition without the stars - God, what were they thinking? - but it is still an enormously beautiful cover. I can just sit and stare at it all day.

My opinion: I loved, loved, loved this book! I really didn't expect to. To be honest, even though the cover is pure beauty I probably would not have picked the book up if I had not won it in a giveaway by YA reads and that's based on its plot. I've never been one much for sci-fi. But I'm really happy I gave it a shot, because I loved it.

I found the novel exciting from the start and it kept my interest all through. There were several aspects of the novel that appealed to me. One is naturally the love story, which I find very sweet and sincere. It definitely has that first love feeling to it, but still it is believable. I also like the 1984 theme with the Eldest ruling the ship with an iron fist. Additionally, all the characters are well-written and interesting.

The altering narration between Amy and Elder was very efficient as we get to share both their POVs, and I think that added greatly to the novel. It also made me read more in every sitting because if an Elder-chapter ended with a cliff-hanger, I had to read an Amy-chapter in-between to get back to Elder. Thus it made it a very quick read. And I read it everywhere! On the train, on the couch, in bed, in the bathroom... you name it. Although I am very prone to motion sickness, I still couldn't help but pick the book up and read it on the 50-minute bus ride to work this morning.

As I understand it all, there will be a sequel to Across the Universe, and I gotta have it! Because this was one of those books that I find myself still thinking about although I've finished it.