A Million Suns (Across the Universe, #2)

by Beth Revis

[Katie King]

I really enjoyed Across the Universe so I sort of knew I would like A Million Suns. Of course, just because you like a series starter doesn't mean you'll like the sequel, but something in me just knew. And I did like A Million Suns! It had everything I really enjoyed about Across the Universe - scifi premise, spaceship, very light romance, an intelligent female MC, and lots and lots of secrets.

The aspect I like most about this series, in both books, is the mystery of Godspeed and its mission, and the little plots Amy/Elder uncover. I like how things are gradually discovered, not infodumped in a villain's monologue. Each piece of the puzzle is solved by them naturally, not through some unrealistic, convoluted back and forth guessing or figured out behind the scenes. This makes it all feel very real, like it could easily be happening on some spaceship in our solar system.

Real mysteries like this are solved in this way. Real mysteries have clues that will stump you for days, clues that are very easy, and clues that will go missing or be tampered with. There are some clues that won't be solved by the MC, but rather by someone she shares them with. There are people who want you to solve the mystery, and people who don't and will do anything to stop you.

In short, I loved this book. Some things that made me drop a star were Bartie and Elder, Doc, and Amy and Victria. Bartie and Elder are quite good friends, but he's born to lead the ship so they lose touch over the years. When things start going south, Bartie is Elder's most outspoken detractor. He incites riots, physically attacks Elder, and tries to mutiny the ship for THREE MONTHS. Yet in the last 5o pages they make up like they were old friends. Nobody really apologizes, they just sort of forget. It's quite funny because Elder actually thinks about this, something like "the last 30 minutes were enough to forget the last 3 months between us." No. That's really not how that works in real life.

If I think of any of my best friends that I've lost touch with over the last few years, and they were my biggest public critic for 3 months to the point where they deliberately dismantle my ability to govern the show and keep everyone safe, I would not just let everything go because of that 30 minutes. We WERE friends long ago, who knows what we're really like together these days, and after all they did to me, even after that 30 minutes they had together, I'm not going to let it go. Things will not be all sunshine and roses between us.

Another problem I had was Doc. Why did Doc kill the specific people that he did? Why did he kill Luthor or Lili? Because he didn't want anyone to threaten Orion's rule? Did someone else kill them? Who was it?

And Victria, she was in love with Orion, so she wanted him unfrozen. But then she gets killed helping Doc unfreeze him and Amy is super upset over her dying. I didn't think they were really that great of friends. I know I was supposed to believe that, but it came across as forced. It seemed like Victria hated Amy because of what she did to Orion and Amy sort of tried to be friends with her anyways. Just because some guy raped her and tried to rape Amy, they're super tight now? I'm sure Luthor had lots of other victims too. And she points a gun at Amy, threatening to kill her just to have her psycho unrequited lover unfrozen, and Amy is TORN UP when she gets shot on accident. She won't shoot (to kill) Doc because she just couldn't. She could barely dump Luthor's ALREADY DEAD body out the space chute. But she thinks Orion should drown in his cryo liquid. She's thinking about how he left her to die EXCEPT IT WASNT HIM, IT WAS ELDER. So shouldn't you be more upset about Elder leaving you to die? I didn't care for that.