Across the Universe

Across the Universe by Beth Revis follows Amy a young girl unexpectedly awakened from her cryogenic chamber aboard a space ship and Elder, a boy who is destined to lead the next generation aboard the ship.  Elder is slowly learning the truth about their mission when he stumbles upon a room full of small doors.  He opens one and sees Amy.  He rushes away and hears an alarm and finds Amy waking up.  When Amy wakes up she is disturbed to still be on the ship.  Others on the ship find her hair and skin color strange and she is disturbed by all the changes that have happened while she has been sleeping.  As Amy and Elder start to find out the truth in the secrets of the ships operations and why everyone else acts so strangely they also must solve the mystery of who awoke Amy and who tried to kill others in the cryo-chambers.  

This book fits into lots of categories.  It's a dystopian, science fiction, murder mystery with a hint of romance.  The society that Revis has created is creepy and she provides good explanations as to why the leaders have insisted on using such extreme means of maintaining control and having one of the main characters be a leader who is willing and able to make changes to society is refreshing.  The book is short on action but perfect for readers who enjoy science fiction or dystopia.  I found it to be a quick read and I was very interested in what would happen next as we learned the secrets of what was really going on behind the scenes.

Appropriateness:  This one is difficult.  Starting with the easy part, there are no drugs or alcohol or graphic violence.  However, not unlike other recent books in this genre such as Dark Parties, XVI, Matched and Birthmarked government control over sex and procreation is a major theme in the book.  The workers on the ship are all born at certain times and procreate by having a season in which members of that generation have sex everywhere.  These giant orgies (which are described as bodies thumping and groups of people writhing on the stairs and in fields) make Amy very uncomfortable.  At one point she is seconds from being gang raped by a group of men (to which a girl next to them shouts "don't worry, it only hurts the first time).  While I wasn't bothered by the orgies (much because Amy finds them gross) the near gang rape was disturbing and there was little emotional consequence to the near rape and Amy is able to go around trying to figure out what the problems are on the ship like she'd just gotten in a little tussle.  Because of that section alone I'm not sure that I would give this book to a middle school aged reader.  However, there is nothing erotic in the public sex descriptions and the near rape wasn't horrific to read which does make it readable for mature readers in that age group and a parental discussion of the entire subject would certainly make the whole situation sit easier with young readers.  I would put an interest level of 13+ on this novel and I feel that boys would find it equally enjoyable as girls would.