Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Read Dates: March 11, 2019 – March 13, 2019
Publication date: January 11, 2011
Source: Owned copy

Goodreads — Amazon

Amy is 17 years old. She’s giving up everything… her life, her friends, and her boyfriend… to be frozen along with her parents and sent to a new planet where they will land, be thawed, and begin their colonization plans. 300 years. That’s all it will take. 300 years of being frozen and then they will all wake up and live on as if they never missed a single day of their lives. Except that Amy is woken up almost 50 years too early. But by whom?

There are almost 3,000 people living on the ship who aren’t frozen. They live on the ship to work. Farmers, scientists, doctors and nurses… everyone has a job to do.

When Amy awakes, she meets Elder. He’s a boy her age who is training to become the next Eldest. The Eldest is the leader of everyone aboard the ship. It’s his job to make sure things go smoothly. Only, Elder is having trouble learning from the current Eldest, who seems to be keeping secrets from Elder. Soon, someone else is found unfrozen, except, unlike Amy, they have died. Someone on the ship is sabotaging the cryo-tubes. But who? And why? Elder and Amy are determined to find out who is behind it and put an end to the attempted murders. But first, they’ll have to learn secrets that have been hidden on the ship long before they were born.

Yesterday, when I finished this book, my husband asked me how it was. Usually I go into a full speel about the book I’m reading or have just read. I go over all the goods and the bads and I talk it all out to him and that helps me to write these reviews based on how I really felt. I regret to inform you that my answer to him yesterday was simply, “I have no idea.”

So what do we have here? We have space. We have a ship carrying thousands of people to another planet where they will colonize. We also have 100 frozen bodies on the ship. People that have certain skills necessary to fix any unforeseen issues once they land on this new planet. Then there’s the people on the ship who are there to run things. They work, they mate, they have babies and then those babies are raised to learn their roles on the ship. The cycle continues over and over. I found the entire concept of the book to be fascinating. I loved the idea of what was going on. What I didn’t care for: the characters.

This book is labeled as a YA romance. We’re led to believe it’s about star crossed lovers. But let me go ahead and burst your bubble here. It’s not. They kiss once in the entire book and the rest of the time it’s just Elder fantasizing about kissing her more.

For me, this was just a bit predictable. That’s not to say this wasn’t a good book. I did enjoy reading it if only to find out the secrets each character was hiding. Apart from that, the only parts of the book I liked were the scenes with Elder’s best friend, Harley. Harley was so genuine. He protected Amy through the entire book and I thought that was the sweetest thing. Harley is what gave this book a 3.5 instead of a 3. LOVED HIM!

Anyway, if you’re going into this thinking it’s going to be a star crossed romance with lots of kissing and stuff… think again. If you like your regular run of the mill YA science fiction novels, then this is for you.