Category: Challenges- Debut Author 2011

(Review) Across The Universe

Posted on by Cindy


Title: Across The Universe
Author: Beth Revis
Pub Date: January 2011
Pages: 416

Source: I received a finished copy from the lovely Vimala at Penguin Canada. Thanks so much Vimala.

About the book:
A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn’t do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed’s hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there’s only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

When I first heard about the book I was super excited and wanted to read it because it sounded really good and I have to admit that I love the cover of the book. Although I have to say that I was a little worried because its a fantasy/sci fi kind of book and that is a genre I could never get into but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised because not only was it fantasy/sci fi but there was also a bit of a mystery thrown in as well. I made it a point not to rush in reading the book although there was times I had a hard time to put it down.

This is Beth Revis debut novel and apparently it will be a three book series. I can’t wait to read the others now.

The book is narrated by Amy, who is the teenage girl who goes into a frozen sleep and is scheduled to wake up three hundred years later but is awaken fifty years too soon. The other narrator is Elder who is also an teenager but soon to be leader on the Godspeed ship. He is being trained by Eldest who will hand over the ship to him when the time is right.

The opening chapter is about Amy and her tough decision if she should follow her parents that are going to be frozen so that they can be a part of a new planet because they are essentials to this mission because of the skills they have that will allow them to form this new planet in three hundred years. Her mother goes first, Amy thinks she will go next but her father goes next but tells her that she can go with them or she can remain on planet Earth. Staying on Earth will allow her to be with the rest of her family, her boyfriend and life will be like it was. Amy is torn but in the end decides to go with her parents.

With just fifty years left into the trip Amy is unplugged and is unfrozen quickly and almost dies from it. The mystery around this is that they have no idea who could have done this. Who could have unplugged Amy before her time and why?

Amy begins to realize that everyone on the ship is alike (dark skin, dark hair and eyes) with her being the different one (red hair, pale skinned and opinionated). They are all non-ethic. Everyone on the ship is controlled because they all know there places, roles and its all peace, love and happiness there. (This was my impression of the ship)

Elder who was born on the ship doesn’t know about anything outside the ship like Amy does. He believes what he has been told and we soon realize that everything about the outside world has been alterated to the Eldests liking. So what Elder thinks he knows isn’t the truth.

Eldest makes sure to keep Amy away from everyone because he knows that she will be trouble and warns the ship that she is different and to stay away. Amy is forced to live in the hospital with everyone else that is labelled different such as the artists and musicians.

Before long more of the frozen bodies are being unplugged and no one can figure out why and who would be doing this. Amy and Elder take it upon themselves to figure out who the person is that is slowly unplugging people and allowing them to die. With the list of suspects slowly narrowing down could Amy and Elder’s life be in jeapordy?

One of my favorite things about the book is the cover because if you flip it over you get to see what the ship looks like and it comes in handy with when reading the book because you can see exactly where the locations are.

As I was getting ready to write my review I was on Beth Revis site and discovered that Across The Universe has a website site devoted to the book where there is an interactive map of the ship and so much more.

If you are looking for something to read then I have to suggest this book. You will not be disappointed. I know I wasn’t and I am so glad I was given the chance to review this.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

Debut Author Challenge 2011 I am in

Posted on by Cindy

Well I decided to bite the bullet and take part Kristi from The Story Siren’s 2011 Debut Author Challenge. Which just happens to be the last day to do so.

When I first heard about it I was thinking about it and then for some reason I thought that the sign ups were closed until I saw on her blog today that this is acutally the last day to sign up. Hopefully I am not too late.

If you want to find out more about it you can click the Sign Up post.

This will tell you all about What is the Debut Author Challenge is all about.

For more info click here. There is actually a list of some of the debut books coming out this year.

I figured since I read alot of YA and MG books that I could do this challenge and I know there is a few debut authors in the pile that I have to read.

My goal is to read at least 12 debut authors. I just quickly looked at the list and I have already read at least two books (XVI and The Water Wars) from the list and I have quite a few sitting here waiting to be read.

Is anyone else taking part in this challenge? To see how I am doing with this challenge you can always check the progress by going into my labels and looking for Challenges-Debut Author 2011.

2011 Debut Author Books Read
– The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.

(Review) The Water Wars

Posted on by Cindy


TITLE: The Water Wars
AUTHOR: Cameron Stracher
PUB DATE: January 2011
PUBLISHER: Sourcebooks Fire
PAGES: 240

SOURCE: Received this from the publisher

Synopsis from publisher’s site:
Would you risk everything for someone you just met?

What if he had a secret worth killing for?

Welcome to a future where water is more precious than oil or gold…

Hundreds of millions of people have already died, and millions more will soon fall—victims of disease, hunger, and dehydration. It is a time of drought and war. The rivers have dried up, the polar caps have melted, and drinkable water is now in the hands of the powerful few. There are fines for wasting it and prison sentences for exceeding the quotas.

But Kai didn’t seem to care about any of this. He stood in the open road drinking water from a plastic cup, then spilled the remaining drops into the dirt. He didn’t go to school, and he traveled with armed guards. Kai claimed he knew a secret—something the government is keeping from us…

And then he was gone. Vanished in the middle of the night. Was he kidnapped? Did he flee? Is he alive or dead? There are no clues, only questions. And no one can guess the lengths to which they will go to keep him silent. We have to find him—and the truth—before it is too late for all of us.

MY THOUGHTS:
I have to start off firstly by saying that I absolutely love the cover for this book. I think right now its my favorite cover of 2011. The people at Sourcebooks did a fantastic job with the cover.

When I first heard about this book I thought that Cameron was a debut author but he’s not. This is actually his debut YA book. This is his fourth book. The previous three books were adult books.

Over the past year I have developed a taste for YA dystopia books and honestly I haven’t read alot.

As I was reading this I wondered how far off this book could really be from the future? We all know that the environment is changing and we see it all the time from the drastic weather happening all over the world. What will the next 50 years be like? Will we have this drastic weather, what about water?

Water is something we take for granted and don’t realize how important it is until we don’t have it. This past year I actually grew to appreciate how important it was when a water main broke on our street and we were without running water for several days.

Okay back to my review. When you first open the book there is a new map of North America and its divided with new names. Canada is called the Empire of Canad, Artic Archepelago, Island of Greenland, and the United States is now divided into eight regions called California, Dakotas, Arizona, Repulic of Texas, Republic of Louisiana, The Great Coast, Republic of Illinowa and Republic of Minnesota.

The Empire of Canada is the big old bad enemy and we are apparently at war over what is left of the water along with every other nation that is left. The ice caps have all melted into the ocean and there is no more Niagra Falls.

The story takes place in the Republic of Illinowa. The people who are left are forces to drink unhealthy water that is distributed through the governments Water Board Authority (WBA). People are getting sick from desalinated water. Which is really just seawater with all kinds of chemicals.

Vera and Will attend school (if you could really call it that. It seemed like they were being brain washed) and they have to work on the water team. One day will Vera is waiting for the bus she sees Kia. Kia isn’t like the regular people of the state he is different. He doesn’t go to school because his father is a rich driller. Vera can see this because he lives with guards and drinks fresh water. I quickly realized that there was more to Kia and was curious to find out what it was.

When Kia tells Vera that he knows where fresh water is. Vera is intrigued by Kia and quickly finds ways to spend time with him. Kia goes against everything that she was taught. Then suddenly Kia and his father are kidnapped and thanks to Vera she is the one to put it together. They both decide that they need to rescue Kia and his dad.

I really enjoyed how Cameron told the story about how the water was the hottest commodity out there and just how much people in authority would go to keep what was left sacred. It was about half way when the action picked up. There were pirates, bombs, gun fire, and so much more that you had to read to find out if Vera and Will would survive and get to Kia in time or will it be too late?

I wasn’t sure at the beginning and put the book down several times with no problem but then once I got to the middle I had a hard time to put it down and managed to read it in two days. There was so much going on action wise that I had to keep reading.

I couldn’t find a website for the author but i did find this Blog Talk Radio interview. The host is Brandon and the show is called
Brandon’s buzz Interview with Cameron

There is no trailer for the book but I did find this:

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
If you are reading this on a blog or website other than Cindy’s Love Of Books or via a feedreader, this content has been stolen and used without permission.