I finally got my hands on a copy of Across the Universeby Beth Revis.  WOW~  I sat down with it Sunday afternoon and did not get up until I turned the last page.

Amy gives up everything on Earth to follow her parents on the spaceship Godspeed. They are flash frozen (cryogenics) for the 300 year journey to a new planet.  Amy’s parents are Very Important People, but Amy is listed as unessential cargo.  Then Amy is unexpectly “thawed out” fifty years before the spaceship is to land.  Now she has no one to trust and once her parents wake up, she will be older than they are.  Even though Amy is newly awakened, she soon realizes that things are not as they should be on the ship.  Can she trust Elder to help her find the answers as to who is killing the frozen colonists before her parents are next?

Elder has his own worries.  He will one day take over leadership of everyone on the ship, but the current Eldest is not sharing knowledge or control.  Elder decides to search for the answers himself and turns to Amy.  Once they discover the truth, what will they do with it?

Even though the story takes place on a spacehip, the nuts and bolts of space travel are not the focus.  Revis tells just enough about the ship to make it believable, but the heart of the story is in the characters, especially the relationship between Amy and Elder.  She also raises questions about truth and power–some of my favorite themes in stories.  This is a ship powered by lies.  What will knowing the truth do to it and the people who live in it?