Title: Across the Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Amy gives up her boyfriend, friends, and very way of life to follow her parents into the future, three hundred years into the future to be exact. A future that will take place on a new planet, Centauri-Earth. And, to get there Amy, her parents, and a few hundred other people seen as necessary for starting life on a new planet have agreed to by cryo frozen and transported aboard the ship Godspeed. However, fifty years before the scheduled landing, plans change for Amy when she is mysteriously unplugged and nearly killed in the thawing process .
Now Amy must adjust to an entirely new existence without her parents, on a ship where life is far different from the one she left behind on earth. On Godspeed there are 2,312 unfrozen passengers who have created their own world. There are those who live on the Feeder level who farm crops, raise animals, prepare food, and take care of the sick and mentally unstable. And, those who live on the Shipper level who take care of the actual ship. Below that level lies a floor only a handful of people know about– the level where Amy and the rest of the “frozens” are kept. And, above them all is the Keeper level which houses Eldest, the tyrannical leader, and Elder, the teenage leader in-training.
And, while it all sounds like a perfect system, Amy is struck by the strange emptiness exhibited by the Godspeed inhabitants and their unwavering support of the dictatorial Eldest. Amy knows that Godspeed has hidden secrets. Secrets that almost killed her and continue to threaten the lives of her parents and the other “frozens.” Secrets that Amy may only figure out if she and Elder, the boy who found and saved her from her near disastrous thawing, find a way to trust each other and work together.
Who will like this?: It’s a sci-fi, dystopian, thriller with a dash of romance so really it holds appeal to fans of any of those genres.
If you like this, try this: The sequel A Million Suns: An Across the Universe Novel, Cinderby Marissa Meyer, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and Legend by Marie Lu.
Recommended by: Jen, Fairfield Woods Branch Teen Librarian