Across the Universe (Across The Universe #1)

Amy and her parents are cryogenically frozen passengers aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She
thinks she'll wake up 300 years in the future on a new planet Centauri-Earth with her parents. She gives up everything she's ever known and loved: her life, her boyfriend, and friends.

But something happens. Somehow she's unplugged and wakes up earlier than planned and to a future that's scarier than she'd ever imagined. But even more frightening is the fact that someone aboard the ship tried to kill her.

Control on the Godspeed has been given to Eldest, a tyrannical leader. Elder, who is the heir to Eldest, is fascinated by Amy. He wants to know more about her and the Earth she left behind.

Amy wants to trust Elder. When another cryo chamber is opened, Amy knows she needs to find out who is behind this before her own parents are murdered.

I loved this story! I'm a huge Sci-Fi fan. This novel is much more than that. It's also a thriller that has twists and turns throughout. Just when you think you can guess what'll happen, another twist pops up. The story hooks you right at the very beginning with a chilling description of Amy and her parents getting frozen for the trip.


Revis takes us into a future that is both fascinating and scary. She does an incredible job showing us a world on a ship that has everything from pastures for cows, space for thousands of people, and hidden compartments that hold secrets that aren't revealed till the end. One such room is where the so-called mentally ill passengers go. They're the ones that don't follow blindly along.


Revis succeeds in having two different points of view. Elder is rebellious and when he finds Amy he refuses to listen to Eldest and demands to find out more. He's more multi-layered as he really wants to be the next leader of Godspeed but also resists the authoritarian rule of Eldest. With Amy he hopes to bring change.

Amy's voice is realistic especially when she describes what it's like to be 'sleeping' for hundreds of years.

I love how we see the world of Godspeed through Amy's eyes. When she goes for a run and witnesses the inhabitants staring in first shock then angry gave me chills.

The chemistry between Elder and Amy starts out slow but increases. This forbidden love doesn't fall back on tired cliches but rather builds until the end which even surprised me!

I couldn't put this book down. I read it until early in the morning. One sign of a great writer is if you end up having dreams about being in that world. Yes, that happened to me!

Check out the reversible cover! One side has the map of the ship Godspeed. The complex world of Godspeed is filled with lush and rich details that suck you right in. Can't wait for book two!

I haven't actually read a lot of YA that was purely sci-fi. Everything has been dystopian with sci-fi elements, or fantasy with sci-fi elements. So I was excited for this book, which takes place in a more realistic near-future, where the technology is advanced, but not so advanced that it's almost magical. And from the first few pages describing Amy's internal conflict as she undergoes the (cringe-inducingly painful) cryogenic freezing process, I was swept up in this book.

Across the Universe alternates narrators between Amy and Elder, and at first it took me a little while to get used to Elder's POV, because he's just so different from Amy. He's been raised on a mono-ethnic society where everyone fills the role they were born into, and nothing more. He doesn't question that most people are confined to one area of the ship. He doesn't wonder about Eldest's harsh treatment of anyone who might be a bit different. He's been raised to lead his society, and it seems perfectly reasonable to him when Eldest insists that Hitler had it right. But at the same time, Elder is lonely. He longs for connection, for understanding. And he's curious, even though he's not supposed to be. He wants to understand everything about this ship he's supposed to run, even though he's been told it's not necessary. And by grasping those few threads, he slowly became a character I could relate to, in spite of his differences.

Amy almost acts as the voice of the reader, since she comes from a world very much like ours and wakes up in one very much not like ours. She questions the society that has evolved on the Godspeed, she questions the leadership of Eldest, she questions the way Elder has been conditioned to a different set of moral standards than what she believes. She's a bit of a reluctant heroine in the story, as she wasn't even sure she wanted to go on this mission, and definitely didn't want to be awakened early. Her slow acceptance of her unfortunate circumstance almost mirrors the stages of grief (in many ways, she is grieving), and her progression through the story was fascinating.

I've heard some people disappointed that there wasn't much of a romance in Across the Universe. I wasn't really in this group, because I was more intrigued by the mystery element (AND THE SPACESHIP) than the potential romance. But if you are among the group hoping for an epic space love story, prepare to alter your expectations. While there are hints of romance, they are not the main focus or driver of this story.

As far as the mystery element of the story, Across the Universe kept me guessing. It dropped just enough clues that the ending was surprising, but satisfying. And I appreciated that once the truth comes out, it's all in shades of gray. The villains are not purely evil (maybe a bit sociopathic, but not evil). The good guys are not purely good. Everyone involved in the murders and their resolution had motivations that, viewed the right way, were justifiable. (No, the murders themselves were not justifiable, but the reasons behind them were, to a degree, understandable). I'm all about nuanced villains and heroes, and I thought Across the Universe delivered both in spades.

Across the Universe was an imaginative and thoughtful story, with a fabulous space setting and complex characters. The ending tied up the murder mystery, but left the bigger question of the fate of the Godspeed open, which is what I assume is explored in the sequels, A Million Suns and Shades of Earth. I'll be excited to pick them up and find out what happens to Amy, Elder, and the rest of the people on the ship.

I can’t ever remember cringing as much during a first chapter as I did during Beth Revis’s “Across the Universe.” Never before has an opening scene had me more intrigued and grossed out all at the same time.

Sci-fi novel “Across the Universe” follows Elder, a sixteen year-old boy charged with becoming the next leader of a spaceship that is in the midst of a three hundred year journey to a new planet habitable by humans, and Amy, a seventeen-year-old girl who was unceremoniously melted from a cryogenically frozen sleep that began hundreds of years ago back on Earth. Those are the intriguing parts. The cringe-worthy parts come from the process of Amy actually being frozen in the first few pages of the book, which involves tubes down the throat, gag reflexes, and thick, gelatinous liquid oozing through your veins.

Fast-forward hundreds of years and the ship, named Godspeed, is well on its way to the new planet. A whole new societal order has established itself on the ship that is extremely different from society as we know it. People mate during specified times, monotony is celebrated, and diversity is vilified. It is these characteristics that make Revis’s book so good. She has created such a small world (literally, you can’t travel too far without hitting the sides of the spaceship), yet that doesn’t stop Revis from making that world outrageously complex, intricate, and fascinating.

New developments are constantly arising about the workings of the ship, and the history of Godspeed’s people is as wrought with drama as today’s Earth-bound civilizations. That’s surprising seeing as how there are billions of people on this planet, and only a couple thousand on Godspeed. But let me tell you, that drama is good, and gasp-worthy revelations keep popping up until the very end of the book.

This juicy drama is compounded by the smallness of Revis’s world. With constant reminders of the metallic sides of the ship, or the hatch doors that if opened would suck you out into space, you can’t help but feel a sense of claustrophobia along with the characters. This especially comes out with Amy, who is so used to the openness of Earth and her ability as a cross-country runner to run as far as she wants to, that she is constantly aware of the confines of her environment. These confines are felt by the reader too, and only make you feel more enveloped by the drama that unfolds on Godspeed knowing that Elder and Amy can’t go far to escape their troubles. Selfishly, I was glad Elder and Amy had nowhere to run, because their problems equaled a great read for me!