A Million Suns

Trapped on board the spaceship Godspeed, Amy trusts no one.

 

The ship's ruler is dead and a rebellion threatens.  Amy wants to help Elder as he tries to take charge, but she's torn between her feelings for him and the chaos that's pulling everything apart.  As more harrowing discoveries are made about Godspeed, Amy is caught in a  desperate race to unravel its secrets.  Only one thing is certain.

 

They have to get off this ship.

It's no secret that I found Beth Revis' Across the Universe disappointing; not so much that I didn't want to read the next instalment of the series, but enough to have my doubts that I would continue with the trilogy beyond the second book.  Imagine my surprise when I read A Million Suns in one morning, unable to put the SCI FI YA tale down until I had finally found out all of the secrets that were still hidden within Godspeed.   

The plot of A Million Suns primarily concerns itself with Elder's struggle becoming a leader; not only is he too young for the job, but he is having to deal with a population that is no longer drugged into submission.  Throughout Revis is continually asking tough moral questions, not of her characters but of her readers too, the main one being should Elder resort to using Phydus again in order to gain some type of order and save the population of the ship?

The book is again split, alternating between Elder and Amy's narrative.  For me, I think my new found love of the series came about because I didn't mind reading the Amy sections this time around.  With the events of A Million Suns, Amy had something to focus on other than her parents and her constant whinging for the life she left behind.  Amy's narrative voice has evolved due to her adapting to life on Godspeed. While she hasn't forgotten her parents, her previous life isn't as all consuming as it once was. 

I thought that A Million Suns was a lot stronger than Across the Universe in many ways, and although the 'villain' of this book was really obvious, I still enjoyed going through the rabbit hole with Amy and Elder.  Unlike before, I am now very excited to see how Revis wraps up her trilogy and am going to order a copy from the library as soon as it becomes available.

Across the Universe

Amy has left the life she loves for a world 300 years away.

Trapped in space and frozen in time, Amy is bound for a new planet.  But fifty years before she's due to arrive, she is violently woken, the victim of an attempted murder.  Now Amy's lost on board and nothing makes sense - she's never felt so alone.

 

Yet someone is waiting for her.  He wants to protect her - and more if she'll let him.

But who can she trust amidst the secrets and lies?  A killer is out there - and Amy has nowhere to hide...

I am finding it hard to write a review of Across The Universe by Beth Revis.  I finished it two weeks ago, and I can't really remember any thoughts I had while reading.  Revis' tale was pleasant enough, and yay for a bit of SF YA, but there seemed to be something missing.

The only problem I can recall is that I wasn't as grabbed by Across the Universe as I wanted to be, finding it very easy to put it down and leave for a couple of days.  This could be because I didn't really care too much for one of the protagonists: 'daddy's girl' Amy.  I was very glad that the narration was split between her and Elder, as I don't think I could have stood for a whole 400 pages of Amy's inner thoughts. Although I wasn't so keen on her, one of the redeeming features of Across the Universe, for me, was the relationship between Elder and Amy.  I couldn't quite figure out if Revis was aiming for her characters to fall in love at first sight or for them to have an instant curiosity about something different.

Overall, I think there's more of me wanting to like this book than actually liking it for what's on the page.  However, I am still interested as to what will happen in the next book, and maybe that will be a chance to convince me that this series is better than it first appears...