A Million Suns by Beth Revis

Genre: science fiction
Series and Book #: Across the Universe Trilogy #2
Pages: 386
Summary:

It’s been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. Everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed.

But there may be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He’s finally free to act on his vision—no more Phydus, no more lies.

But when Elder learns shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a mystery that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier. Their success—or failure—will determine the fate of the 2,298 passengers aboard Godspeed. But with each step, the journey becomes more perilous, the ship more chaotic, and the love between them more impossible to fight.

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I find that these books are very hard to get into. But once the action starts, and the mystery begins, it's easy to fall headfirst into the story.

Amy got so whiny at the end of the book. And Elder still didn't believe in his leadership! The roles reversed themselves. At the beginning, Amy was fine and Elder was uncertain. At the end, Amy was whiny and Elder was strong. Their dynamic is still interesting. Unlike most stories, Elder and Amy are not star crossed lovers. They've got their problems and Revis addresses them during the story.

I love space. Astronomy has always interested me. Revis obviously loves it just as much because the way she wrote the beauty of the stars was excellent. Both Elder and Amy were fascinated by them, and the sparse moments when they saw them, the writing came alive and it took my breath away.

Overall, I really liked the character changes that came without Phydus. It was interesting to see how Elder acted when he saw disobedient citizens. Reality check the hard way. I understood what Amy wanted to do with freedom and everything, but Godspeed isn't America and it's not made of people who have grown up with what's right and wrong. She bugged me because she didn't understand that. But other than that...the mysterious deaths were a surprise. The romance between Elder and Amy blew up eventually (YAY!). Which begs the question, what will happen in Shades of Earth? What's on the new planet? How are they going to deal with it? WILL AMY'S PARENTS FINALLY WAKE UP? The suspense is killing me!

The Cover: Lovely, like the first. It's very reminiscent of the end, when they can both see the stars, and they're leaving for an unknown world.

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Genre: science fiction & mystery
Series and Book #: none
Pages: 398
Summary:

Amy is a cryogenically frozen passenger aboard the spaceship Godspeed. She has left her boyfriend, friends—and planet—behind to join her parents as a member of Project Ark Ship.

Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed’s scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now, Amy is caught inside a tiny world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed’s 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest’s rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship’s cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

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This book started out slow but eventually picked up speed as Amy was unfrozen and Elder started to become more connected to her.  It was interesting to see how life on the ship had evolved since Amy was originally frozen.  Beth Revis did a great job trying to explain Amy's claustrophobia on Godspeed. Always, Amy had a constant reminder that her planet is far, far away.

Amy was hesitant of the trip initially, and when she was unfrozen she missed her family and her boyfriend Jason with such a ferocity that it seemed she would never love the ship. Elder tried his hardest to get her to see the good in everything, but she was stubborn and didn't think that there could be anything worth living for on a ship that was just a crude remake of her beloved Earth. Her transition of an entire planet to just a large spaceship was slow (almost agonizingly so) and I felt as if Beth dragged out the beginning a bit too much.

Godspeed was definitely not as civilized and evolved as I though it would be. Of course, this might have to do with Eldest's obsession with obedience. Beth has to be one of the most creative authors I have read. Her writing of the Season and the supplements in the water was definitely something no layman would think of. I really love her for going out there and writing something that some might find offensive. But what she wrote made the novel more gripping and made Eldest seem more inhumane.

Overall, I wouldn't say the novel was as breathtaking as some have said it to be, but it's definitely one of those novels that you should read. My favorite part of the entire book is that is the installation of the stars. You can tell that that Beth is passionate about the solar system because it is a main part of the novel. It also spurs Elder's realization that maybe life on Godspeed isn't as perfect as he originally thought it was. When Elder and his friend Harley see the stars they don't just see them as bright sparkles of light in the sky; they see them as a beautiful world outside of the cold container they've been held in. And to me, that's absolutely beautiful.

The Cover: This is one of those achingly perfect covers that's just so right for the book.