A Million Suns Review

Godspeed was once fueled by lies. Now it is ruled by chaos.

It’s been three months since Amy was unplugged. The life she always knew is over. And everywhere she looks, she sees the walls of the spaceship Godspeed. But there may just be hope: Elder has assumed leadership of the ship. He’s finally free to enact his vision – no more Phydus, no more lies.
But when Elder discovers shocking news about the ship, he and Amy race to discover the truth behind life on Godspeed. They must work together to unlock a puzzle that was set in motion hundreds of years earlier, unable to fight the romance that’s growing between them and the chaos that threatens to tear them apart.

In book two of the Across the Universe trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Beth Revis mesmerizes us again with a brilliantly crafted mystery filled with action, suspense, romance, and deep philosophical questions. And this time it all builds to one mind-bending conclusion: They have to get off this ship.

A Million Suns is the long awaited sequel to Across the Universe by Beth Revis, a book I loved from the word go.  It goes without saying that if you haven’t read Across the Universe (review here) then you may not want to go any further as you will likely encounter spoilers.

I have to start by saying that for a series I love, I found it really hard to get into this book, not helped of course by the fact that I got sick and had to stop reading for a while because I couldn’t concentrate.   However, when I DID get into it, I really enjoyed it – the quest element, following clues, trying to figure out the big mystery and watching the relationship between Amy and Elder develop.  I’m glad I skimmed over the first book beforehand though as the problem with books being published a year apart is that you sometimes forget important plot points so I’d recommend you do this before reading the sequel (unless you have the most amazing memory ever).

One of the things I enjoyed the most was Elder’s character arc.  He has been training to become a leader all of his life and when the time came (albeit a little premature perhaps) he begins questioning his abilities and so do the rest of the ship which in turn causes all sorts of difficulties.  I liked his internal questioning and trying to figure himself out.  Amy on the other hand is still in her ultimate detective role and without her, this ship would be lost is all I’m saying.

The biggest frustration for me about the book was all the lying and bullshit floating around which quite frankly just pissed me off.  And when the ship came off Phydus?  Collectively, they acted like idiots and it made me not care about what happened to them.  I’m not saying that it was unrealistic or that it was badly written, not at all.  It was probably a true reflection of what could happen but I don’t condone their behaviour and if Amy and Elder had decided to leave in an escape pod, I certainly wouldn’t have minded as they are the only two characters I really cared about.

A Million Suns is FULL of twists and turns and yes, you do get to find out the big mystery which will rock you to your core!!  I’m very excited to see what’s going to happen next so bring on Shades of Earth!

There is no official book trailer for A Million Suns so I’m going to leave you with a piece of music that reminds me so much of the series and is one of my favourite modern day film track scores.  If you’ve seen the movie Sunshine, you’ll recognise it ;)


A Million Suns was published on 10th January, 2012 in the US and 5th April, 2012 in the UK.  To find out more about Beth Revis and her books, please click here to visit her website.