Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

Across the Universe by Beth Revis

2 reviews

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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lisbet's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense 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

3.0

While YA Dystopian SciFi is pretty much my favorite kind of books, this book has one major hurdle in the plot that keeps me from loving it.
When I watched the movie Passengers, I could not get past the fact that Chris Pratt’s character woke Jennifer Lawrence’s character without her consent - an irrevocable decision that couldn’t be undone and robbed her of the life and future she had chosen. This book uses the same situation to set off the plot, and that is something that cannot be glossed over. However, the author doesn’t dwell on this at all, and doesn’t allow Amy the anger and other emotional and relationship fall-out of that discovery, and in my opinion that is a huge cop-out on the author’s part. This is largely responsible for my not being able to give the book a higher rating.


But even when you overlook that, there are still issues that keep this book from being great. For me another huge flaw is how the author approaches the topic of sexual assault.
The attempted gang rape of the female protagonist (and its aftermath)  is completely glossed over.  Most infuriatingly of all, the leader of the assailants is not dealt with or punished in any way what-so-ever and completely disappears from the story afterwards. WTF?


One thing I’d love for the author to have explored in depth is Amy’s nightmares and dreams while she was in stasis. What caused them? Why did she have them if no one else who’d been in stasis before her hadn’t?

Some of the things I enjoyed was the discussion about what separates and defines sane vs. crazy, and the multitude of problems (both logistic and moral) of generational ships.

Like much YA SciFi, this is light on the science and there’s not much explanation for why the people are traveling across the universe to a new planet? Are they the only ones leaving earth? Are others going to the same planet? Other planets?

While I did have some problems with the book, I am planning to read the next book in the series
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