As sci-fi's go, this was pretty realistic. As stories go, it was also about as terrifying as Fahrenheit 451. The two main characters are Amy (who is supposed to be cryogenicly frozen until she lands and the distant planet that is supposed to be the new Earth but is for some reason woken up early) and Elder (who is supposed to be in charge of the ship until it gets to 'Centauri Earth'). There are a lot of secrets, all of which I guessed before I was supposed to. The author hinted way too strongly at the known mystery and basically destroyed any hint of suspense. There is a limit to how many times people can ask 'Are you sure he's dead?' before I decide he is alive. That limit is 0.
While I'm being annoyed, there is a line between being realistic and being disgusting and Revis slipped over it. She didn't go nearly as far as other authors I've seen, but she definitely passed it. I get that she was trying to make a point with it but there are somethings I don't really need to hear. And overall, I'm not quite sure what she was trying to tell me. Am I supposed to always tell the truth? Be true to my feelings? Stop reading books about how the future will be without emotions?
A personal moral problem I had with this book; the portrayal of suicide as an escape. The character literally abandoned everyone who needed him but no one seems to mind. I'm not getting into this; you all probably know what I mean.
One last criticism: the cover art. While it does get across the mood of a good chunk of the book, when my roommate asked, "Does what is happening on the cover happen in the book?" I did say no. Then I said 'Well,..." And proceeded to ruin the book for her. But yeah, this is the cover...
Good things: Wow. I haven't had one of these in a looong time but here goes.
Lack of belief in the readers' reasoning abilities aside, I did want to know what would happen in the end. I did care about the characters enough to yell at the book when one of them died. I did finish the whole thing in one afternoon and there was a paragraph that made sense but still surprised me.The whole idea that the normal people thought they were crazy and vice versa was interesting and the story did move along very well. My highest praise would have to go to the ending. Revis does not leave the book in an unrealistic, fairy tale blast of happiness. She gives it a realistic ending--whether you look at romance, human nature, science, etc.--but she leaves you with the feeling that the main characters have succeeded and they will make it.
Rating? Good.
Read again? Yes.
You read? Probably.
Age level? mature teen to young adult.
No comments:
Post a Comment