For Review: Puffin (Razor Bill) Published 3 March 2011
From Goodreads: A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.
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.
This is one of those books that I just had to read - as soon as it hit my radar I knew I wanted to read it. Did it live up to those expectations? Hell yes!
Across the Universe has on of the most gripping openings I have read for a long time. The first chapter is amazing and I steamed through the first 100 pages without even realising it. It really sets the scene and builds up the characters. The following 300 pages increase the intensity - I literally couldn't put this book down. I had to know what was going on!
I really loved the author's writing - how she alternates the story between Amy and Elder, her descriptions and dialogue. It so pleasant to read, and it made the story really flow. I really enjoyed seeing this 'world' through Amy's eyes and then seeing it contrasted through Elder's - how he has not known any different and then his realisation that things are not right.
The characters in this are just brilliant. I loved Amy straight away. She's forced to make a very difficult decision at the beginning of the book and I really admired her choice. I also liked her determination to find out the truth and protect her parents. It would have been easy for her to cower and hide but she doesn't - I had to admire her for that. Elder comes across as kind and sweet - but lonely - so it was easy to understand why he would be drawn to Amy. I thought they had good chemistry and were actually quite similar.
There is a really good mystery element to this too. I had no idea who was behind it all and the revelation at the end was a bit of a shock. In hindsight though - the signs really were there! But on top of all that we slowly discover all the lies that everyone on the ship have been told - and find out what is really going on. I can't wait to see where things go from here and am eagerly awaiting the sequel.
