Reach For the Stars - Across the Universe

Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1)
By Beth Revis

Rating: 5

“The glitter in the sky looks as if I could scoop it all up in my hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another but they are so distant so very far apart that they cannot feel the warmth of each other even though they are made of burning.” 

Sleeping Beauty made it look glamorous. But cryo sleep is anything but a fairytale.

Amy and her parents are filled with a special liquid, have tubes shoved down their throats, their eyes sealed shut and their bodies frozen in 'coffins'. And all for one, special purpose. Three hundred years into the future, they will be de-frozen...and by this time, the vessel on which they will be housed, a spaceship called Godspeed, will have reached a new planet. A planet on which their lives can begin...again.

But fifty years too early, Amy is awoken. The new planet is still as out of reach as the stars.

Confronted with a bizarre version of her 'previous' life, Amy learns that someone unfroze her - unauthorised, they snatched away her future. She cannot be refrozen, and she will have to wait fifty years to be with her parents again. Fifty years of waiting. Fifty years of solitude onboard the spaceship. Fifty years to get used to a life where she is a freak - the other inhabitants on board are all of one ethnicity. Of one mind. Of one loyalty.

Elder's future is clear. He is to be Eldest. He is to lead the ship and its inhabitants. To keep them safe from disharmony. But the current Eldest's actions make him question his role.

Before Elder saw Amy, he never truly wanted to question the way of life onboard Godspeed. It just was. But with someone unfreezing the 'special cargo' one by one, dirty secrets unfolding on Level 4, unexplained behaviour, missing history and fake stars, Elder must make a decision - whether to follow what he's told his true, or to find the truth for himself.

It may be called 'Godspeed', but this spaceship's foundations are anything but holy.

Are they really fifty years from the new planet? Are the stars truly out of reach? And can two people - so different and yet so alike - change the course of events by working together, despite the odds that face them? 

Unlocking a myriad of secrets may not be enough to save them all, if Amy and Elder cannot put their pasts behind them and concentrate on their future.

Time doesn't count. Only now.