ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis

Title: ACROSS THE UNIVERSE

Author: Beth Revis

Publisher: Razorbill (Penguin)

Release Date: 1/11/11

Number of Pages: 398

How I Got It: Won a signed hardcover copy from publisher's facebook contest

Author's Website: www.bethrevis.com

Goodreads Summary:

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.

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I'm struggling with what to say about this book, but in a really good way! ACROSS THE UNIVERSE is one of those books that just stays with you even after you've finished reading it.  It's deep and haunting and shocking and intriguing and scary and hopeful. I finished it late last night and it's been haunting the back of my mind all day. It's a book that starts off kind of subtle, but the more you get to know and the more you learn as you go through it, the more intrigued you are to find out what's really going on. It becomes one of those books that you just don't want to put down because you want to know what's going to happen next.

There are themes in this book that slap you across the face as you read them, and things that come as a complete surprise when you come to them (some even a little heartbreaking). This book feels claustrophobic being stuck on this ship with Elder and Amy in outer space with no way out. It's terrifying in the way of causing you to think about what people are capable of doing in the name of something they feel is right. It's thought-provoking in it's subtle ways of examining and commenting on power and leadership and hope and survival. There is a definite theme running through on why people do the things they do and what they will do to keep things the way they want them.

There is discovery to be found as the reader journeys with Amy and Elder to discover the lies and secrets on this ship, and what that means for the world they're now living in. There is a mystery to follow along with, but the story is much more than that. The world Revis has created is engaging and scientifically advanced with it's gravity tubes and embedded wireless communication devices. The descriptions are vivid and make you feel as if you're there on the spaceship with the characters, seeing what they're seeing and feeling what they're feeling. The book ends with hope - and as the book tells us - we need hope to survive and have a reason for being. I know I'll be anxiously waiting for the next book in this planned trilogy to spend more time with Amy and Elder and see what they do next now that their whole world has been turned around!

*I do need to warn you that there are a couple of mature scenes in this novel during the "Season" that caught me a little off guard from what I was expecting.


4 1/2 STARS for ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
Don't forget to look at the other side of the dual-sided cover for a map of the ship.

Book 3 of 12 for DAC 2011