Across the Universe by Beth Revis

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. - from Goodreads

I'm not going to write a formal review of this book because so many have done this already, and much more eloquently than I ever could.  I just want to add my two-cents to the discussion.

Revis describes this book as science fiction for people who don't like science fiction. I'd have to say that's a fair description because equally important to the story is the mystery that Amy and Elder must solve which is twofold: 1) who has been thawing out the frozen bodies and 2) What is Eldest (the leader of the ship) hiding?

This is a great book to use to talk about climax (with high school students anyway - this book is too mature for middle school) because the climax of this story is extremely obvious and perfectly paced. 

Another great thing Revis does in this book is make you feel that sense of claustrophobia it must have been like to be traveling hundreds of years on this ship without a planet in sight. If you don't get anything else from this book, I would say the one thing you will take away is a feeling of gratefulness to be living here on this planet, even with all of the problems and the injustices we face.

I will say this - if you've seen this book around and have chosen not to read it because you don't like science fiction, give it a try anyway, especially if you like mysteries. Yes, this is a science fiction, but the science part of it not as prominent as other science fiction novels. This book is more about the people than the science.


Across the Universe by Beth Revis
Published: January 2011 by Razorbill
Pages: 398
Genre: Science fiction/dystopia/mystery
Audience: YA