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Across the Universe
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Across the Universe
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Across the Universe
Audiobook10 hours

Across the Universe

Written by Beth Revis

Narrated by Carlos Santos

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Book 1 in the New York Times bestselling trilogy, perfect for fans of Battlestar Gallactica and Prometheus!

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO SURVIVE ABOARD A SPACESHIP FUELED BY LIES?

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She has left her boyfriend, friends--and planet--behind to join her parents as a member of Project Ark Ship. Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed's scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now, Amy is caught inside an enclosed world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed's 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest's rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship's cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

"Entirely original, deeply compelling, and totally unputdownable--I've found a new favorite!" --Carrie Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of The Forest of Hands and Teeth

"A murder mystery, a budding romance, and a dystopian world gracefully integrated into a sci-fi novel that blows away all expectation." --Melissa Marr, New York Times bestselling author of Wicked Lovely
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 11, 2011
ISBN9781101484425
Unavailable
Across the Universe

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Reviews for Across the Universe

Rating: 3.7955092862870887 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have been seriously searching out Dystopian YA for a few months now. I like the thought of another/alternate world, so after reading a few reviews for Across the Universe, I had to get my hands on it.

    I was expecting a romance between the two main characters, but in there really wasn't. There was a lot of hinting that Elder ( weird to call someone that) was in love/lust with Amy, but there really wasn't anything else, and you didn't get too much from Amy on her feelings. Though that is understandable, seeing as she is awoken on a ship that she was never supposed to see.
    The story switches POVs just about every chapter and at times this would confuse me, and I had trouble following along with the book and would have to go back just to make sure I didn't miss anything.
    The character that I really liked in the book "dies" and after that I had a hard time continuing to read, but after struggling through the more sci-fi than dystopian story I knew that if I didn't finish the last 100 or so pages I was going to be left with more questions than I already had.
    Across the Universe is well written, but like I said, it reads more of a Sci-fi than YA Dystopian like I thought. First we start off with Amy and her parents being Frozen for 300 years so that they can help set up the new planet they are being sent to. First off, I don't care how bad life here on earth gets.. I don't want to be frozen!!! And secondly, why would you want your child to go through that?
    From there we switch POVs with Amy ( remember she is frozen) and Elder, who is aboard Godspeed ( the Ship). You get to be inside Amy's mind while she realizes that her body is frozen but not her mind, so that is a little scary in itself! And when meeting Elder, you start to wonder why he just blindly obeys.
    After Amy is unfrozen ( by whom we don't know) and she is saved, her and Elder form a semi friendship, she meets Harley, Doc and Eldest ( scary DUDE!!), Needless to say, after realizing that everyone aboard the ship looks almost just alike Amy starts to feel like more of an outcast, and then more Frozens are being unplugged and it becomes a race to find out who is doing it. Without giving too much away, know that in the end, we find out who was doing it and a little tid-bit about Amy's unfreezing that we didn't know.
    The ending was very abrupt in my opinion and as much as it pains me, I am waiting for the second book to come out so I can figure out how Amy and Elder are going to handle everything that they found out.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Goodreads Synopsis: 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.My Review: This book is crazy. It feels like it messed with my head. An amazing story that I couldn't put down. I need to read more, even though I know this book is over. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm obsessed. It's insane. When I started reading it, I often stopped to think about what I was reading. And when I did that, it really started to seem weird. Things didn't add up. But while I was reading it, everything made perfect sense. I couldn't stop. I'd read, and then stop and think about it and wonder just what I was really reading. It has a religious haze around it that I broke through, but couldn't quite shake while I was reading it. It's like a murder mystery, but it's also nothing like that. I can't quite pinpoint what this book really is. All I know is that I need more. Harley was probably my favourite character. He was one of the people that really made the book come alive. Someone to connect with, even though everyone was on a spaceship in the middle of the galaxy. The whole Eldest/Elder thing confused me up until the very end when everything suddenly made perfect sense. Amy's life is effed. Elder's life is effed. I can't comprehend what it would be like to live like this. Medicated. Sheep. I don't know what to think about it. It's crazy. It's like I don't know what to do with my life now that this book is over. Find the next one, maybe. Yeah. That'll be fun. Anyways, thanks for reading. Definitely check out this book, it's amazing. (Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    The first book in a YA trilogy, a science-fiction, post-apocalypse dystopian murder mystery. Amy and her parents are cryogenically frozen for the centuries-long journey to a new planet. When Amy is awoken too early, she discovers that all aboard the spaceship Godspeed is not as it should be. I borrowed this because the audiobook was available from the library. It perhaps wasn’t the best book for me to listen to -- I’m squeamish about medical details and would have preferred to skim some things, like descriptions of being cryogenically frozen. And sometimes I just wanted the story to progress faster.But there are some interesting ideas in here, I was curious about mysteries, and the two POV characters, Amy and Elder, grew on me. I’ll read the sequel at some point. Maybe just not as an audiobook.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really liked this book.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I read this forever ago and what's funny is that right after I did the movie Passenger started getting passed around and when I saw the trailer I thought "well gee this sounds familiar" ha.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This could've been so good.For some reason, I thought it would be so good.Long story short: It's not.First of all, the writing is not superb. It's not awful, but since everything else is also lacking, the not-so-great writing stands out even more.Then there are the characters. I guess they aren't terrible or unrealistic, but... they just aren't great either. They aren't WRITTEN well. Elder is basically a child all the time, and not in an effective boy-trying-to-be-leader way. Amy is freaking annoying. She has plenty of reasons to be upset all the time, but still. It's just not done well. Harley is probably the only character I like.Which brings me to the plot itself. SO FREAKING PREDICTABLE. And I'm not just talking about the romance. Literally everything. I knew right away who Orion would turn out to be, knew how it would end for Harley, knew there had to be something up with the water. The absolute only thing that was actually a surprise was Elder's final confession to Amy at the end, and that part, while pleasantly surprising, just goes on to prove how childish Elder has been the whole time.Man, it could've been so good. Just a major disappointment. Honestly I'm surprised I managed to get all the way through it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    i found the beginning to be quite boring but then it got interesting towards the end. i liked it
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I listened via audiobook and I really hated the narration for the Elder chapters. However, once I got past my dislike and started really listening to the story I got sucked in rather quickly. It's not a bad read, although I thought some of the material was a bit too much for a young adult novel. (Attempted rape?! Yeeesh! That was intense even for me!)

    I really like the general concept, being frozen for 300 years and waking up to discover that everything has drastically changed. That's a really cool idea and I think the author did a great job executing what that would be like in both the waiting to be unfrozen and the emotional roller coaster experienced when one finally awakes. I also think she did a fantastic job of creating suspense where suspense was needed.

    I know that this book is part of a trilogy, but I don't think I will read the rest of the series. For me the ending to this book was perfect. I don't really care what happens next. Perhaps some of the suspense carried throughout the novel needs to be added to the end to make readers hungry for more?

    I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sci-fi with a splash of romance added in.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Surprising.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Amy and her parents are being cryogenically preserved - frozen - so they can survive a 300 year trip to a new planet. Amy, however, is woken up early, and someone is unplugging other colonists as well. She finds herself as the only earth-born perosn on board the spaceship, involved in a mystery in an on-board society that is in many ways incomprehensible to her.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was one of the most unique YA books I have ever read. I'm not usually a fan of science fiction-y type stories, which I would definitely have described this book as such. But somehow, I was able to ignore that and sink myself into this story completely. First, let's talk characters. Amy was a very strong character which was a unique mix into the emotionless world she's thrust into. Her narrative was compelling, as she struggles to reconcile herself to the strangeness of this new world. She has to battle a new claustrophobia of knowing she's stuck on a ship, can't see her parents and has no one in the world, except, perhaps, for Elder. Being trained as the new leader, Elder has never really questioned the society he lives in aboard the ship, until he meets Amy. Her very uniqueness is the catalyst that causes him to begin questioning everything. As they both start to investigate the unfreezing of certain cryogenically frozen passengers, he begins to see how wrong things are in a society he has never questioned. I love the fact that he was able to come to slow realizations of the wrongness around him. He was willing to listen to her and see reason rather than holding stubbornly to his longheld beliefs. These characters play off each other very well in the story. Told in alternating points of view between Amy and Elder, this book sucked me right in. I really couldn't point to a single part of this book that was slow and failed to hold me. I read it in like one day, which should speak for itself. Beth Revis' writing was riveting, interesting, paced well, and at times very beautiful. To hook a reader who has never liked this type of story like she did me, she shows her talent, and the fact that she's going to have some staying power in storytelling. The twist at the end floored me. I had even thought of it at one point, but dismissed it. Yet, it still shocked me. I was amazed how the author was able to keep it from coming out earlier in the book. If I had one complaint, it was that the ending felt a little rushed to me. However, I later found out that there is supposed to be a sequel, so it makes sense that the ending would hang a little bit. Although, don't get me wrong, it did have a satisfying resolution. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I thought it was ok, confusing story and i don't love the characters
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I wanted to like this, I really did. But honestly, the writing style leaves a lot to be desired, and the character relationships didn't do it for me either. The dystopian premise of life on the ship leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and not the good-make-you-think kind, but rather the gaping holes kind. That said--if you're a fan of creepy science, mixed with creepy reproductive practices, then this is the book for you.
    A warning for those who have suffered any kind of sexual assault, there is a scene where Amy is assaulted (refer to previously mentioned creepiness).
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    this book was pretty good as far as sci fi goes but I dont think I will be checking out the sequels. It was really interesting but just not quite as thought out as I would like and I didnt like the ending or some of the plot points.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    science fiction (teen protagonists). The cryogenic process didn't grab me at the start, and I got bored with the character development (the male lead seems a bit boring even though he claims to like a little disorder, and the female lead has to talk to herself in her brain while waiting 250 years for her to be woken up? Not the most exciting start for a teen book). I get that there will eventually be adventure and romance, but I'm not thrilled with how it started.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Not to my taste. The overarching premise was intriguing, but Amy worked my last nerve. Also, it may be because I grew up reading as much sci-fi as I could get my hands on, but I found it predictable to the point that I didn't particularly enjoy it. I can see teens really loving it though, as they read it through newer eyes.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    3.5 stars

    This was a really good story, but I gave it only 3 (3.5) stars because I figured out most of the "mystery" well before it was revealed, and that always disappoints me. Perhaps I'm being unfair; it is a YA book, so I'm not the intended audience. However, I still enjoyed it, and it was thought-provoking.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Dystopia becomes concentrated on a generation ship. Amy is mistakenly woken up from cryogenic sleep to a strange society still a long way from a new planet. It's creepy and interesting and a little bit over the top. I preferred the female narrative voice to the male, but I still liked the effect of two narrators.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this book. I've always wondered if you can freeze people and thaw them out to live again. I also like sci-fi books. This one though shows that there are dictators no matter what year it is and also a little white supremacists. I do think the author should have never told us what year they left or at least but it further ahead. Just 15 years away to me isn't very realistic.

    But over all a good read and I'm looking forward to the next one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I absolutely adored this book from start to finish. Amy is frozen as a teenager, and boarded on a spaceship destined for a planet 300 years away. She's marked as non-essential cargo, only there because her parents requested it. Fifty years before the ship is planned to land, someone pulls the plug on Amy and she unfreezes.

    She awakens to a world very different to the one she left- everything is controlled, including emotions and reproduction. She becomes friendly with Elder (the future leader of Godspeed) and Harley, as they struggle to make sense of the ship's secrets. I don't want to say much about the story, because part of the fun of reading it was finding out all the little bits of information along the way. The perspective alternates between Amy and Elder, and it's handled very well.

    My only regret is reading it so soon, because now I have to wait until next year to find out what happens next.

    For more of my reviews and recommendations, visit my blog: here
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5

    Taking the book at face value I find that I liked the examination of human nature within the story of Across the Universe. The book explores how human society would change and adapt to life on a generation ship, with startling results. I think Amy is justifiably scared when she wakes up on the ship and her loneliness is only compounded by the differences between herself and the people on the ship. I loved Harley - he was an awesome character and kept me guessing throughout the whole book. Here, however, my tenuous appreciation of the book ends.

    First of all I have an intense issue with the characters. Amy is a more rounded character than Elder but this is due to Elder being such a poorly envision man. He doesn't know who he wants to be, rails at Eldest, the ship's leader, unnecessarily and yet meekly follows him when he should question orders. Elder falls in love with Amy at first sight, for no other reason than she is different from the mono-ethnic people of Godspeed. He doesn't even try to understand her and ignores her when she insists that human society has been warped on the ship from that it was intended to be. Amy, on the other hand, understandably misses her parents and is scared for their well-being, but all she can do is whine about her Daddy (forgetting her mother all together) and her ex boyfriend.

    I won't get started on the science used in this book. I will direct you here, to a blog post on the heinous science errors in this book. I will say that the book is not at all grounded in science but rather popular misconceptions of space travel entertained by a largely clueless populous.

    This book is certainly not for me. Sadly, in my opinion Across the Universe doesn't raise any interesting issues (the alteration of Earth's history is intriguing, but poorly handled and largely ignored), had only one character I enjoyed reading about (who will not be making an appearance in future works) and while the twists in the plot are enjoyable, the characters do not react to them in a satisfactory manner (the ending was simply ridiculous).

    Read more of my reviews here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The premise: ganked from the backcover copy of the ARC: A story of love, murder, and madness aboard an enormous spaceship bound for the future.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 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 can she? All she knows is that she must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.My RatingBuy the Paperback: It's a smooth read that keeps you turning the pages, there's no doubt. But I feel jaded. It's probably because I'm not Revis's target audience. I'm an adult reader, with enough SF under my belt to start poking holes in the story because I can, and that's never fun (well, for me it's not). Because the book does have a lot to offer: alternating first person POVs between Amy and Elder, between the female and male perspective, and the romance isn't the point of the story at all. Nor is there a love triangle! No, the focus of the story is the mystery of the ship and why its leader seems so intent on keeping secrets. Deciphering the mystery is fun, though part of it I figured out easily on my own, and I did enjoy some of Revis's world-building. The book also ended on a really nice note, which made me feel bad for nitpicking. The book isn't perfect, but it IS enjoyable, and it's great to see a non-dystopian SF novel hit the YA shelves, especially a title that so easily caters to the male and female point of view (even the cover is reversible!). Anyway, since I read the ARC, my rating isn't wholly accurate, because it's not like I'm basing it on what I bought. That said, I think the book is enjoyable, but worth waiting on if you're an adult reader. For teen readers, I can't say, other than to point out I think they'll have far more fun with it. :)Of course, I should note that I read this book after finishing a Guy Gavriel Kay novel, and really, anything I read after the Kay was just going to pale in comparison, so . . . Review style: There's quite a lot to talk about with this book: how it's not the traditional YA romance, yet still has shades of it; how it seems to be targeting both boys AND girls (and why that's a little jarring at times); we'll talk about Sleeping Beauty motifs, life aboard generation ships, and whether or not the teens in this book are believable/relatable or if I'm just getting too old to read these things. Some spoilers, so if you want to remain spoiler-free, do NOT click the link below to the full review at my LJ. As always, comments and discussion are most welcome. REVIEW: Beth Revis's ACROSS THE UNIVERSEHappy Reading!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5


    Across the Universe by Beth Revis begins with 17 year old Amy Martin and her parents, Maria and Robert, in a cryo lab, deciding who will be frozen first.

    Maria, a geneticist, ends up going first so Amy will not be afraid. The process is explained, from inserting an IV to sealing the eyes, inserting tubes into the stomach, and eventually, filling the clear box with a strange blue liquid. Lastly, the box is flash frozen and then put into a drawer, similar to a morgue.

    Before Her father goes into the box to start his freezing process, he tells Amy that she will go last. That way she may choose to stay behind and live with her aunt and uncle. He does not want to pressure his daughter to the life he and her mother have chosen.

    Amy is traumatized by watching her parents go through the process. Her parents are top scientists, and it is vital that they agreed to be frozen and reanimated 300 years in the future, when the ship arrives at the new planet. After a while, Amy does decide to go ahead with the procedure even though she knows it is going to be painful an she will never see anyone on earth ever again.

    Soon, Amy is frozen. However, Amy quickly notices that she is still conscious. Will she be in this suspended, conscious state for 300 years?!

    "People have been cryo frozen before me, and none of them were conscious. If the mind is frozen, it cannot be awake or aware"

    The story moves forward to 250 years in the future as the ship glides through space. . During the time Amy was inanimate, she had thoughts or dreams although this should not have been possible. Amy and her parents are on the ship - Godspeed. Elder/Eldest is the name given to the ship's leaders. The Eldest is the main leader; Elder is a leader in training. Each Eldest/Elder is created in a lab on Godspeed. The eldest person of his generation will be the ship's leader when the time is appropriate. People do not live long lives on Godspeed.

    The current Eldest is a hard man. The Elder, a 16 year old, is impatient that his mentor will not reveal all there is to know about the ship and how it operates.

    Amy's frozen, glass box becomes mysteriously unplugged and she is hastily and painfully reanimated. Amy has now been reanimated almost 50 years early. There no way to safely refreeze Amy so she is now all alone. Only Elder and his friend Harley will keep Amy company and protect her when possible. And, when the ship lands, Amy will be much older than her parents once they are reanimated.

    Eldest is angry about Amy's presence, seeing her as a dissident. He announces to the entire ship that she is a freak and should be avoided.

    Amy demands to know what has happened to her. Things escalate when other frozens are unplugged. Some live and are refrozen - some die. Amy finally figures out that there is a military connection which makes her fear for her father's life.

    The operation of the ship is somewhat complex. People are drugged into submission for easy rule. The drugs were put into the drinking water. People who are no longer useful are secretly killed. The majority of the people, "Feeders," are told what to do, when to do it, and even when to mate. Drugs are used to remove individual thought. This, all to keep the ship running smoothly.

    It is learned that Orion, the Record Keeper is really an Elder that was supposed to have been killed. He arrives and kills Eldest. It is also learned that he is the one that has been killing frozens. Orion believed that the military personnel would turn the ship's people into slaves. Orion is frozen by Elder.

    Elder is suddenly cast into the role of Eldest and the ship's ruler. He outlaws drugs and begins to try to figure out how to undo all of the misdeeds and lies done by the former Eldests and how to build a future with Amy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a young adult science fiction/dystopian book. I have been overloaded on dystopias over the last couple years and have stopped reading a lot of them. However, I really enjoyed this one. It was well written, engaging, and had a very intriguing premise. This is the first book in a trilogy, all of the books in the trilogy have been released.Amy is seventeen years old and has decided to join her parents as cargo on the spaceship Godspeed. In three hundred years Godspeed is supposed to reach a new planet for humans to colonize. Many centuries have past and a sixteen year old boy known as Elder is being groomed to take over leadership of Godspeed from the Eldest. However when Amy is accidentally awoken early things change for both her and Elder. Whoever woke Amy was trying to kill her and she needs to figure who the potential murderer was. Amy and Elder struggle to unravel the secrets behind the society of Godspeed.As with all young adult books there is a bit of a romance in here, but it definitely wasn't the driver for the story. The largest driver was the mystery behind how the society on the spaceship had developed into what it did and all the secrets surrounding that.There is a lot of amazing world-building and some awesome plot twists in this book. It is a very engaging story and impossible to put down. The book is mainly a mystery with heavy sci-fi and thriller overtones.Just watching what society aboard Godspeed has evolved into is fascinating. As the mystery unravels and you see why the society was structured this way the whole thing makes a sort of creepy and eerie sense. Amy and Elder are both incredibly engaging characters. Amy is a normal 17 year old girl who is thrust into a position of being extraordinary just because of her status of being Earth-born. Elder has basically been brain-washed by Eldest from a young age and fights against everything he has ever known to make sense of the mysteries Amy uncovers.The book was very well written, easy to read, and very engaging. It ends at a great spot and I am super curious to see how things play out in A Million Suns.Overall a fantastic science fiction/dystopian/mystery. I really really enjoyed it a lot. I loved the world-building on Godspeed and the engaging characters. Highly recommend to fans of YA science fiction. I really enjoyed this book and will definitely continue reading the series.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well written and an interesting concept with people "frozen" and put on a ship to another planet. Someone is unfreezing folks though...I did have a huge problem with the rape scene and also the whole everyone being in "heat" at the same time like animals. While it was important to the story it was just too much for our kids so won't buy.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Goodreads Synopsis: 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.My Review: This book is crazy. It feels like it messed with my head. An amazing story that I couldn't put down. I need to read more, even though I know this book is over. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm obsessed. It's insane. When I started reading it, I often stopped to think about what I was reading. And when I did that, it really started to seem weird. Things didn't add up. But while I was reading it, everything made perfect sense. I couldn't stop. I'd read, and then stop and think about it and wonder just what I was really reading. It has a religious haze around it that I broke through, but couldn't quite shake while I was reading it. It's like a murder mystery, but it's also nothing like that. I can't quite pinpoint what this book really is. All I know is that I need more. Harley was probably my favourite character. He was one of the people that really made the book come alive. Someone to connect with, even though everyone was on a spaceship in the middle of the galaxy. The whole Eldest/Elder thing confused me up until the very end when everything suddenly made perfect sense. Amy's life is effed. Elder's life is effed. I can't comprehend what it would be like to live like this. Medicated. Sheep. I don't know what to think about it. It's crazy. It's like I don't know what to do with my life now that this book is over. Find the next one, maybe. Yeah. That'll be fun. Anyways, thanks for reading. Definitely check out this book, it's amazing. (Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I'm not a YA- not by a long shot- but I really liked the creativity of this story. The romance angst was a tad annoying but other than that the characters were great and the whole concept of traveling to another world and frozen people while their are "disposable people" keeping things moving along was pretty interesting. I have read all 3 and the ending (the last ending) was absolutely brilliant.Thanks for the great read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Across the Universe is a book that I feel I've been waiting forever to read, it's been on my TBR shelve for ages, and I've had it on my kindle for just as long, so when I started organising my reading by months I decided that it was time. This books started out good but I'm sad to say that it isn't without its flaws.My biggest issue with this book was how it was so predictable. I knew who the 'killer' was from the start and I also knew things they tried to subtlety hint at only to reveal at the end. And anyone who knows me , knows I have a very hard time getting over the predictability of a book, there's only a few books that I still enjoy despite it.Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't all bad. I liked some of the characters, sadly they we the sub characters. I found the main ones high annoying, Eldest was maybe the worst character out of the lot, I really didn't like him. The world that Beth Revis was good, but just not for me, I wasn't blown away and maybe that was because I had went into it excited about reading it after so long and in a way, expecting to feel more.The relationships in it I also didn't get. The only one for me that was believable was between a sub character and his dead girlfriend. I just didn't think Elder and Amy worked well together at all, others may disagree with me but that's how I fell.I think this book would have been brilliant for its target audiences which I'm guessing is between 12-16, but I don't think that anyone above that age would feel the same as they do and connect with it as much. So just because I didn't really like it as much as I would have hoped, doesn't mean its all Bet Revis's fault, it just isn't one of those YA books that you could read regardless of age
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I came across this book while browsing my local library's site, and it just happened to be available. I went into it knowing nothing about the book at all, and ended up pleasantly surprised.

    We open with Amy, a 17-year-old daughter of a scientist and a top military official who are all being cryogenically frozen to be transported to a new planet 300 light years away. Despite her hesitations, she chooses to go with her parents, and they are all placed on Godspeed for launch to the new world. The Earth is dying, and the essential personnel aboard are to help populate and develop life on the new planet.

    Elder is next in line to lead the people of Godspeed. Unaware of the cryo people being transported in the bottom levels of the ship, he only becomes aware when someone thaws Amy's pod years before it was time. Amy and Elder are thrown together to find the answers they are both searching for, and being the only two of the same age group, also fall in love.

    There was a little left to be desired on the world building aspects, but overall it was an entertaining start to the series. I will be reading book 2.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I really enjoyed this novel. It actually reminded me a lot of Jeanne DuPrau's Ember books, where humanity has hidden itself away for a long time and a secret keeps them in a state of limbo. I was hooked from the get-go and found the story pretty enthralling. One criticism I would make: the alternating viewpoints worked really well, but at some points the two narrative styles were almost indistinguishable. Hopefully her next books in the series will improve on that point while continuing to develop this great story.