Across the Universe: Book Review

Across the Universe comes out today, and I hope you’ve been waiting for it! After reading the mesmerizing opening pages, made available by Razorbill/Penguin HERE, I know I was. Luckily, a friend loaned me her ARC, but I’ll still be ordering my own copy and one for you if Random Number Generator chooses your comment number. Contest open until ten PST this Friday. More details at the end of this post. 

The book opens on earth in the not-too-distant future as seventeen-year-old Amy and her parents are about to be cryogenically frozen for a three-hundred year journey aboard the spaceship Godspeed. In chapter two, we meet Elder, ruler in training of Godspeed during its journey through space. The novel successfully alternates between the viewpoints of these two main characters who have more in common than just their age. Both are, in a sense, trapped, and as their stories unfold, it becomes clear that lives depend upon each finding a way to break free from his or her physical and emotional "boxes."

Across the Universe was blurbed as “Brave New World meets Titanic." I’m not a huge Titanic fan, but I did LOVE Brave New World, which I first discovered in my late teens. Revis echoes Huxley’s book in a fresh way as she explores the larger themes of demorcracy, power and love.

Huxley once said that, “All democracies are based on the proposition that power is very dangerous and that it is extremely important not to let any one person or small group have too much power for too long a time.” On the spaceship, Godspeed, there is one ruler, Eldest, and the book pivots around the ways this man uses his power and the mystery of who is unfreezing the cryos early and effectively murdering them.

Another theme Revis examines is the idea that a lack of knowledge is a form of imprisonment. While pursuing her writing, Ms. Revis taught at a rural high school and in her Letter to Readers, (I wish I still had this in front of me) she wrote about how she had come across students trapped by a lack of options or by their own small world-view. She said she attempted to capture this idea in her novel as she encased her characters in a metal spaceship and shot them into space. I loved that concept because who hasn’t at one time or another felt claustrophobic? Constricted by a lack of choices? Or petrified to make a move, not knowing if you really have enough knowledge or experience to make a good decision? Main characters, Amy and Elder are likeable, layered characters who wrestle with these emotions. These two fictional people and the challenges they faced stuck with me long after I finished the book. Also, I appreciate that while this book sold to the publisher as a trilogy, Across The Universe, has a satisfying ending. But yes, I'm excited to read more about Amy, Elder and the rest of the people on the Godspeed! 

Contest Rules:

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