Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Across the Universe

The world building in this book was really good, you can tell the author put a lot of thought behind it. But the characters not so much. All of the characters were incredibly lackluster and lacked true depth.
The focus on the ships inhabitants mating ritual was very odd, you can tell the reader was supposed to find it disturbing that everyone was just loosing their inhibition and having sex just out in the open, but it was more silly than anything. The author then decided to throw an unnecessary SA scene in there that held significance to the character for what felt like about 5 or so pages before they moved on.
Overall this book had potential to be good but it just couldn't get there.

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hollyberrybooks's review

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adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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noblecharley's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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martamae77's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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hamletslover's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

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rinku's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I thought Across the Universe only had an interesting premise and I would never imagine that I enjoyed the book as much as I did. I originally gave the book five stars, but I’ve lowered my rating to 4.5 stars since the story was a bit too predictable for my taste.

The story follows two POVs; one of them is Amy’s. Amy and her parents were conservated with cryo-tanks on the spaceship Godspeed to arrive at a new planet to live there. Things don’t work out as planned and Amy is woken up too early and there’s no way to freeze her again – such a horrible fate and the scene of her waking up was able to portray this horror so well. The second POV follows Elder who’s designated to take over the command of the ship one day. I think those POVs were a great choice to see the contrast between someone who spend their whole life on the ship and someone who just wants to go home and criticizes the ship more. The POVs were just changed at the right points and made the story even more exciting.

What makes the book furthermore great is the claustrophobic and kinda creepy atmosphere at Godspeed. The writing style is great as well and has vivid descriptions of places and emotions. I especially loved the great portrayal of Amy’s emotions. Also, the lore and world building were interesting as well and I’ll hope to hear more of it in the next books.

Some points of the plot were quite predictable though, like the fact that

Orion was the bad guy and the former Elder, Harley would kill himself and what happens with the old people at the ship – this last reveal was still creepy

. Even though it was partly predictable as well, I enjoyed the ending:

First, it is dramatically revealed that the ship will take much longer to arrive at the planet than Amy thought and that she will probably never meet her parents again. Then, like I’ve mentioned, we get to know that Orion was the former Elder, and Elder kills him. I wondered though how no one noticed before that Orion couldn’t be located. The final reveal shocked me as well: Elder woke Amy up because he was so obsessed with her. I feel terribly sorry for Amy, and I wonder how she’ll deal with all of this in the next book

Other interesting topics are thematized as well, like racism, classism (only rich people can use the cryo-tanks and there’s a big divide between the social classes), reproductive medicine or gen manipulation. I still have two critiques when it comes to topics in this book: First, I found the wording that “only crazy people live in the psychiatry” not so great and second, there was an attempted rape that was absolutely not necessary for the plot.

I honestly hope that the Across the Universe series won’t end with a happy ending. I just don’t feel like it’s fitting for the story, but I fear it will since it’s a YA book. Until then, I’m excited to see where the series will take me next!

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tinyy's review

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adventurous challenging medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I skimmed the entire book after reading

the attempted rape scene which was highly unnecessary. Also the whole world building around the season was bizarre and gross.

Interesting plot twists toward the end but I won’t be reading the sequel.

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annaluzia's review

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

I have so much to say about this book and most of it is BAD.

There is unnecessary and way too descriptive sexual assault happening

with a rescue from a male character...

Some other things as well that I'll put in the content warning tags!

It was still an enjoyable read in terms of easy writing style. But that's what the half star is for, my opinion of the book got worse with every single chapter I've read. Insta-love happening, really non complex characters and plot, easy to see plot twists, unrealistic things happening and readily excusing the horrible stuff one of the main characters does are the main reasons I did not like the book.

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