335 pages
It's been decades since anyone set foot on the moon. Now, as part of a revolutionary new space project, NASA is sending three teenagers along with a regular crew. The teens will be picked by an international lottery available to anyone between the ages of 14 and 18. The three astonished winners each have their own reasons for wanting to go. Mia from Norway wants to use the fame the trip brings to put her band in the spotlight. Antoine from France needs something big to make him forget about his ex-girlfriend. Midori from Japan thinks it's the perfect opportunity to escape her life of poverty and cultural restraint. The teens and the crew, however, are in for a terrible surprise when they arrive on the moon. Something sinister is waiting for them...and in the deep vacuum of outer space, thousands of miles from home, no one is coming to save them.
I couldn't put this book down--I read it in one day. It starts a bit slowly, but that all the info from the first part is necessary or the second half wouldn't have made sense. Then, about halfway through, the action starts and doesn't stop for the rest of the story. It creeped me out like nothing I've read in quite a while. The ending was awesome, but I would have liked more details about how it all went down. Overall, this is a fun, fast-paced thriller that should please anyone who likes stuff like "The Twilight Zone."
386 pages
In Across the Universe, Amy woke up from a cryogenic sleep on the spaceship Godspeed...only she was fifty years early. She and her parents were supposed to be unfrozen when they reached the new planet they'd spent hundreds of years traveling toward. However, someone thawed her early, intending to let her drown in her container. Luckily for her, she's found and rescued by Elder, the teen who has been raised to be the next leader of the three thousand or so residents who work to keep the little world on Godspeed going. Amy and Elder finally solve the mystery of the mysterious person who unthawed her and uncover many other secrets along the way, but their troubles are far from over. In A Million Suns, Elder is finally in charge. He's taken everyone off Phyus, the drug that kept them complacent and obedient to whatever their leader tells them. He wants to let everyone think for themselves, but he soon realizes that free will isn't all it's cracked up to be. Some people stop working and others rebel outright. Meanwhile, the ship is having mechanical problems, and then Elder and Amy discover the biggest secret yet--and it's something that will affect the rest of their lives and the fate of everyone on board Godspeed.
In some ways I was disappointed with this sequel, but I still enjoyed it overall. I didn't like the scavenger-hunt thing Amy had to go through to find out the big secret, as it just didn't make sense. Why wouldn't Orion have just told Amy outright what was going on? Okay, maybe he was worried about the info falling into the wrong hands. But why not leave her a note where only she could find it? After all, if she could solve the clues, someone else could too, and he was taking a big risk in gambling that she'd figure everything out. That aside, I did get into the book and have trouble putting it down. There's lots of action and multiple problems that Elder has to deal with, which sets the pace as the chaos builds and builds and finally erupts. There's a huge twist that totally shocked me, as well as a cliffhanger at the end that has me anxious for the next book, Shades of Earth, to come out next year. This is a great series for reluctant sci-fi readers. It's got some fun outer-space aspects, but it's not very technical and the focus is on the story rather than the setting.
by Amy Kathleen Ryan
307 pages
The Empyrean is the only home 15-year-old Waverly has ever known. Part of the first generation to be successfully conceived in deep space, she and her boyfriend Kieran will be pioneers of New Earth. Waverly knows she must marry young in order to have children who can carry on the mission, and Kieran, the handsome captain-to-be, has everything Waverly could want in a husband. Everyone is sure he’s the best choice. Still, there’s a part of Waverly that wants more from life than marriage, and she is secretly intrigued by the shy, darkly brilliant Seth.
Suddenly, Waverly’s dreams are interrupted by the inconceivable – a violent betrayal by the Empyrean's sister ship, the New Horizon. The New Horizon’s leaders are desperate to populate the new planet first, and will do anything to get what they need: young girls. In one pivotal moment, Waverly and Kieran are separated, and find themselves at the helm of dangerous missions, where every move has potentially devastating consequences, and decisions of the heart may lead to disaster.
This books seem very unusual to me. You don’t know who to trust, if anybody, and almost everyone has done something that is a deal breaker, but I’m going to be expected to let that go in future books if the story is to continue. Fast-moving, with doses of religion that keep you thinking, what? I perplexed enough to want to know how this will all play out.
