Genre: Young-Adult, Science-Fiction
Pages: 399
Series: Across the Universe #1
Release Date: January 11, 2011
Publisher: Razorbill
Date Read: March 26, 2016
I want to kick things off by saying that I finished read the sequel, A Million Suns, yesterday and even though it took me a year and a half to get to it, it wasn’t because I wasn’t interested. Quite the opposite, really. This is a very interesting novel that leaves you wondering about many things. And I think my anticipation for finding out what would happen next was part of the reason it took me this long, if that makes sense.
The novel is set on a spaceship called Godspeed. Godspeed is on a mission to another planet in another star system, one that’s believed to be habitable. The mission is supposed to take hundreds of years so the ship is handled by generations of people who live their whole lives on the ship. The people crucial to settlement on the new planet are in cryo.
We have two main characters. Elder is a citizen of Godspeed and he’s being raised to become the leader (politically) of the ship. Amy was asleep, only a passenger because of her parents, and was supposed to remain that way until planet-landing. But then someone tried to kill her. Her life is saved but she’s awake before her time. She can’t go back to cryosleep so she decides to use her time to find out who tried to kill her, only to discover that she wasn’t the only one. Someone’s trying to eliminate the frozens and the ship has many secrets. It’s up to her and Elder to figure things out.
Like I said before, I found the book to be very interesting. I mean, it’s a murder mystery in space. How cool is that?! And the story was great. I loved reading about life on the ship and how things worked. Elder was a great protagonist.
The is a well-written novel. There are some inconsistencies with the writing (continuity errors) but not many. Elder’s narrative was very well done. Initially, his narrative has a childlike quality to it. But as the novel goes on, you can read the difference, the growth. It was gradual and very believable. His characters development was brilliant. Amy’s on the other hand… not so much.
I didn’t love Amy’s characters. I’m sure no one’s surprised but I still feel the need to explain. You see, Amy had a bad habit of yelling first and thinking later. She was condescending because she knew stuff about planet Earth that others did not, which was stupid since those people had never been to Earth. She blabbered idiotically, threw tantrums (which were understandable) and was quite self-absorbed. Her only concern was that she might have to live her entire life on the ship. As if there weren’t over two thousand other people who shared her fate.
Also, not all the plot points in the novel were well-handled. The main plot was strong but some others were neglected. This could be counted under inconsistencies.
One last thing I wanna add; the cover. It’s misleading. From the cover, this seems like a romance novel and while there is a slight romance, the novel could not be considered a romance. It didn’t bother me but that’s because I didn’t have any expectations going in. If I’d expected, or wanted, a romance, I would’ve been disappointed.
Overall, I liked this book. It’s a different story and a unique setting and I was very interested in the sequel. I definitely recommend giving it a read.
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