Review Detail

A YA Sci-Fi that is both Dystopian and space Sci-Fi? Awesome! It took me way too long to finally give Across the Universe a read, but I’m so glad I did! After a slightly rocky start with the first two pages where I thought we were seeing Amy as a little girl (seriously, she seemed like she was 5 or so, it was weird) until she mentioned prom, I was hooked. The space ship, Godspeed, was completely fascinating. Immediately from Elder’s narrative we get the sense that something is not right on board, but what? From there he leads us through the ship where random inconsistencies and hidden information are revealed, including a chamber full of frozen bodies.

Cryo sleep terrifies me! Not only is the procedure leading up to it painful and uncomfortable, but what happens after the flash freeze is much worse. Amy undergoes the freeze in the first chapter, and her first few chapters are her in the cryo sleep. That’s right, she manages to narrate when she’s supposed to be in a 301 year slumber. She’s conscious and that’s just not right. I do not even want to imagine what it would be like to be trapped inside your own body, in the dark, alone, and unmoving for three centuries with nothing but your thoughts. That sounds like a recipe for insanity to me.

Once Amy is out of her cryo chamber is when the book really picks up. She wasn’t suppose to be defrosted yet, so who let her out? Then another person is left out to defrost, and we’ve got a murder mystery on our hands! Then, of course, there’s lots of questions about the ship. What’s behind all of those locked doors? Why doesn’t anyone aboard know about the cryo chamber level if those people are important to the mission? Why are so many people held in the mental ward and medicated? What’s happening in the “other labs”? Just what in the world is going on?!

Actually the world building in Across the Universe is pretty darn impressive. The author has created a fascinating, engaging, and completely original world aboard the Godspeed. I absolutely loved the science! It’s super detailed, complicated, and at times, disturbing. There’s times when I cringed thinking about what was happening, and other times when I wanted an encyclopedia with more information!

I could hardly stand to put this book down! There were so many questions running through my mind while reading, and once answers started popping up…woah! I knew Eldest was hiding something, and that there’s a lot of misinformation being passed along, but I never expected what actually was going on! Sure, the murderer was obvious, but the goings on of the ship? Total shocker! I cannot even begin to guess what the second book has in store, but I do know I’m eager to get my hands on it!