Review Detail

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!