Across the universe trilogy - Review

Across the universe, A million suns and Shades of earth by Beth Revis.

Available now.

What's it about?

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.

 My review

Across the universe was an absolutely brilliant and imaginative series! Each book surpassed the next and had me hooked all the way through.
The first book follows both Amy and Elder's perspectives when she is awoken early from being cryogenically frozen, they end up coming together and discovering the mysteries of things that are going on on the ship, it was a completely unique novel, not like anything I have read before. The author really came up with an imaginative plot and setting that kept me guessing all the way through all three books, she had a wonderful way of keeping hold of the mystery while revealing little bits along the way so I didn't get bored of waiting to find out everything that was going on. I was totally on the edge of my seat throughout and found each book to be better than the last.
I don't want to say too much about books two and three because I don't want to spoil anything but I will say they are equally as compelling and gripping as the first and will keep you hanging onto every word.
There is a lot of character growth over the books for our two leads and I enjoyed watching them becoming stronger and coming together, it was a great match, I also loved that the author had done her research to make the things involved with the space craft believable so that the whole book felt feasible.
I really enjoyed it a lot and can't wait to check out Beth's new series when it comes out.

My thoughts on the cover
I know the first two aren't the covers that are out now but they're the ones I have and I like them, though I do like the new ones too, I love the stars and the couple looking out at them on the cover for A million suns. The foliage on the last cover is cool too and I do think it suits the book. They're all great covers.

Favourite quotes

'It's her hair that pulls me forward. It's so red. I've never seen red hair before, not outside of pictures, and the pictures never caught the vivacity of those burnished strands tangled in the ice.'

'Her kiss is soft and gentle, barely pressing against my bruised lips. There is sweetness in it, and innocence, and a promise.'

'"You came back to me," I say, my voice breaking over unshed tears of joy.
"I'll always come back to you," he tells me, pulling me close.'

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Nail your books (7)

'Nail your books is a feature started by Cristina at The princess of storyland, where we share our book inspired manicures.

My latest manicure is inspired by The Across the universe trilogy by Beth Revis, I know there are a lot of covers for these books, but I love the ones that I have, which are pictured below, and while reading the books this week, I knew I wanted to emulate them on my nails. It was difficult to photograph the colours so I've posted lots of pictures for you guys this week.

Here's the covers

(Click on any of the images in this post to see them full sized)

And here's my nails

How to

Yup, the look took all of these colours!

• Sally Hansen miracle cure base coat
• Rimmel lycra pro Black pearl
• Barry M Silvery lilac
• Beauty UK Posh polish Intergalactic
• Rimmel I love lasting finish Pop your pink
• Barry M Gelly hi-shine Blackberry
• Accessorize 3D glitter polish Magic
• Rimmel I love lasting finish Disco ball
• Barry M Matte white
• Rimmel I love lasting finish Azure
• Barry M Gelly hi-shine Dragon fruit
• Accessorize 3D glitter polish Dream
• Barry M Emerald green
• Nail polish by HandM Lady luck
• Models own gold nail art pen
• Beauty UK green
• Save the nail wet look top coat
• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri
• Nail dotter
• Make-up sponge

- So, after first applying a base coat I painted my fingernails with the black pearl colour and my thumb nail with silvery lilac. Then I painted over the black with the Intergalactic glitter polish.

-Once that had completely dried, I used the make-up sponge to dab different colours onto my fingernails, to blend the colours together, check out this video tutorial for better instructions.

Here are the colours I used for each

-After I had dabbed on the colours onto my nails in a way the I liked I put on a thin layer of Rimmel disco ball glitter polish.

-Then for my thumbs, I used the same method to dab Emerald all around my nail so there was just silver in the middle, then I dabbed the darker green around the edges of that for a gradient effect.

-For the next step I used the gold striper/art pen to paint some lines that would form the branches for the plants, I used the nail dotter and yet another green to make leaves, dotting all around the 'branches.'

-Lastly I topped everything off with a wet look top coat for a super shiny effect and used Inst-dri to dry it quicker because I'm too impatient to stay still and wait for it to dry!

I'm soooo pleased with how this look came out, I've been wanting to give galaxy nails a try and these covers were the perfect inspiration, especially as I've spent so much time looking at them the last week and a half as I've been reading through the series which is awesome by the way!
As you can tell, I matched my little and ring finger to the original US Across the universe cover, although you can't see the purple too well, I should have used a lighter shade I think.
Then my middle and pointer fingers match the original US a million sons cover, I love how I managed to get in the little white galaxy and the pink and blue came out well.
My thumbs were hardest because dotting the leaves was difficult but I think I did a good job, although I think I went a bit overboard, I wanted to have more of the silvery lilac background showing through because I adore that colour.
This is definitely my favourite nail creation so far though!
What do you think?

UK vs THE WORLD (58)

UK vs. The world is a weekly meme I made up lol.

It's simlair to UK vs. US except the UK covers are battling it out with their foreign counterparts from all over the world, because who doesn't love judging books by their covers!

UK                       vs                       Greece

A million suns by Beth Revis

Across the universe book two.

('Ένα Εκατομμύριο Ήλιοι' translates to 'A million suns.' - According to Google translate.)

Mist: To be honest I'm not a fan of either of these covers but if I had to choose I'd pick the UK cover because its a lot more intereting, I really like the sun on the Greek cover but nothing about the rest of it, the UK cover at least has some mystery to it and has a sci-fi feel.

Ninfa: Although I'm not a mega fan of either, I do prefer the UK cover. It has a Sci-Fi/Fantasy feel to it and I love the mechanical effects around the centre of the cover, and the tunnel-like vision zooming into the characters.
The Greek version is a little too '70s-tastic for my taste, too graphic and not enough emotion. I do like the blazing sun in it, and the night sky view, but it doesn't really excite me much, it feels dated.
So UK wins this week for me :)

Which do you prefer?