Review: Across the Universe

Across the Universe by Beth Revis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Across the Universe is one of those books I was never really sure about: a part of me wished to read it, yet another part of me wasn’t all that interested. When I found it going cheap in the university’s second-hand bookstore, I decided to give it a go. I was curious, after all, and the least I could do was give it a try.

When I first started the book, I wasn’t at all pulled in. I’m going to be honest: it took me quite some time before I was enjoying it enough to sit down and give it a real read. I kept starting and stopping, putting it down to do something else. It wasn’t that there was nothing going on – the story was growing and developing – I simply wasn’t interested in it. It wasn’t capturing my attention in the way a part of me had hoped it would. Truthfully, it felt like a bit of a drag.

However, I persisted – and persistence brought me a book that I came to enjoy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not crazy about this one. I liked it, I’m interested about where the next two books will take us, but it’s very far from being one of my favourite books. Hence, the three star rating. Admittedly, it’s more of a three-point-five read, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to round it up. Yes, it got better with time. The more I read the more fun I had. However, there were too many things that I disliked for me to round it up instead of rounding it down.

My biggest issue is the predictability. I predicted a good ninety percent of the events. There was only one real twist, which I really liked, that I did not guess at all. There was one I had a couple of theories about, and in the end I opted to believe the wrong theory and the reveal let me see my error choice when opting to pick a theory I believed to be the answer. Everything else, I worked out well before the truth came out.

I hadn’t expected this book to be filled with endless shocks, but I would have liked more than I was given. The book was filled with such an air of mystery around events that I was left expecting so much more than I was given in terms of these surprises that the author kept trying to throw our way. For me, everything was far too clear for the air of mystique that seemed to surround each new aspect of the story that was introduced.

As I said, though, I didn’t hate this book. I’d just wanted something more.

I want to go on and read the next book – I’m hopeful that it will improve upon this one, and give so much more – but it is very far down on my list of priorities. There are so many series that I am interested in finishing that this one is unlikely to take priority for quite some time, unfortunately.

Overall, it was an okay read – it just wasn’t what I had been hoping for.

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