Book Review: Across The Universe by Beth Revis

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Pages: 398
Published: January 2011
Genres: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Mystery, Romance

Goodreads Synopsis...
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

Review...
Oh book hype, how you bring my hopes up (even though I know better) and then slap me in the face, laughing maniacally at my foolishness. 

Firstly I must make a comment on the cover of this book, so here it is: SO PWEEEEEETTTTIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!

There have been many things said about this book, both good and bad. So I will get to the point. This book had all the ingredients for an amazing book. It had a new mixture of genres, and the setting and premise are amazing. But either there isn't enough of some ingredients, or some of them were way past their expiry date, and need to be thrown away.

First of all the romance, it wasn't that it was an overbearing part of the book. Or even that it was forced down my throat like medicine. It was that once it was there, it left a bitter taste. And did nothing AT ALL to improve or add to things. It was just so darn awkward everytime Amy and Elder were anywhere near each other. Plus there was no chemistry, and generally nothing fun or interesting about their romance.

The Science fiction elements however where amazing! I loved how this was used to show the themes in the book. And also it was just so freaking cool to read about life on a spaceship, and being frozen and stored, so that hundreds of years later you could be reawakened.

The mystery element of the book was a bit dull, and I figured it out around the time the characters in the book should have, which was about 100 pages in to this 400 page book. And I didn't just have a hint as to what was happening. I was basically 100% sure who was the 'bad guy' in the story, and how things would end.

As well as bad ingredients, the way this story was presented to me wasn't so great. The writing was pretty sloppy, and the story wasn't engaging even though I expected it to be. The characters were also pretty dull, and stereotypical.

So if your thinking of buying this book, I would say don't waste your time and money. There are plenty of other books out there. That don't fall short of their awesome premise. And hopefully when I review them, I wont feel compelled to use so many food metaphors.


2.5/5