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Across the Universe (Across the Universe, #1)

Beth Revis

Start date: September 1, 2014

Finish date: September 30, 2014

Discussion: Group Read

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December's Book of the Month: The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski
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last updated Dec 06, 2014 07:58PM

December's Book of the Month: Where She Went by Gayle Forman
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last updated Dec 06, 2014 06:03PM

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What Members Thought

Jun 14, 2013 Jessica Andrews rated it it was amazing

So this was my first ever sifi book! I've never had any intention of reading si-fi because the blurbs have never appealed to me before but this one. As soon as I read the blurb I knew I had to buy the book. Plus I got it second hand for £2. It is about a girl named Amy who gets cryogenically frozen to go along with her parents to go on a ship for 300 years to a new planet called Centauri Earth. She and the other frozens will be woken up when they get to the new planet, so when Amy is woken she a So this was my first ever sifi book! I've never had any intention of reading si-fi because the blurbs have never appealed to me before but this one. As soon as I read the blurb I knew I had to buy the book. Plus I got it second hand for £2. It is about a girl named Amy who gets cryogenically frozen to go along with her parents to go on a ship for 300 years to a new planet called Centauri Earth. She and the other frozens will be woken up when they get to the new planet, so when Amy is woken she assumes this is what has happened but really someone has woken her 50 years before landing in an attempt to kill her. There the first person she meets (and the only person who is her age) is Elder, the ship has a system that means there is always an Elder and an Eldest, the Eldest is the oldest person on the ship and was an Elder before he became leader of the ship, and the Elder is supposed to be taught by Eldest to one day rule the ship as Eldest and he is the youngest person on the ship (which confused me how that worked to begin with but it later makes it clear) So obviously when Elder sees Amy for the first time it's amazing for him that there's a girl who's his age who he thinks can teach him about sol-earth which is our world. She sticks out though with her red hair and green eyes and really light skin because all the people on Godspeed (the ship) have become monoethnectic so they all have similar qualities none of which Amy processes. With the help of Elder Amy tries to figure out the attempted murders on the ship to ensure her parent's safe arrival on Cantauri- Earth even if she personally may never see them again.
I loved the Sifi in this book, I loved hearing our society from the point of view of Elder who thinks it's all bad, because he's been taught that monothenicity is the best way for any world to be, but he also doesn't really understand when Amy's screaming at him about how wrong things are compared to Sol-Earth on the ship. There's a little bit of dystopian in it and I loved the mix of the two genres, I liked that while trying to figure out the murders both Amy and Elder figured out more and more about the ship than they ever had before forcing you and them to question it's authority entirely. I liked the first chapter as a getting into it thing because sometimes I find first chapters a little dull. but this one describes the process of getting frozen from Amy's POV, and it gets quite scary when she's watching her mum and dad be frozen and is actually going through it herself. There are also quite a few random crazy chapters from her POV when she is still frozen in which you hear her fears and nightmares and she's a little scatty. It's set out with two POVs with one chapter from Amy's POV and another from Elders, which is good because sometimes when they find out things about the ship they don't always find them out together and one sometimes learns more originally than the other one. So you get both their reactions to whatever revelation has happened next and also some extra information from one of them. The only thing that I didn't like was the ending, and that's just because It's part of a series. It didn't leave me wanting to read the next book at all. Because seemingly I assume that it's just another story with Elder and Amy, but I'm not sure. I still really want to read the next book but it didn't leave me wanting to as Matched and Uglies have this month. ...more

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Sep 10, 2013 Monicab rated it really liked it

Un buen libro, muy original. La idea de una distopia en el espacio me parece muy inteligente y probablemente es la distopia mas creible que he leido. Le falla el que la mayor parte de los misterios del libro son bastante predecibles y ya sabia muchos de los misterios mucho antes de que se desvelasen pero si en los proximos libros los misterios no son tan faciles de descubrir esta sera sin duda una gran trilogia. Tengo muchas ganas de leer el 2º.

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