Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

Across the Universe #3

(I searched for this cover to feature on my blog since I love this, I believe fan made, cover way more than the boring/kinda ugly original cover)

"Amy and Elder have finally left the oppressive walls of the spaceship Godspeed behind. They're ready to start life afresh--to build a home--on Centauri-Earth, the planet that Amy has traveled 25 trillion miles across the universe to experience. But this new Earth isn't the paradise that Amy had been hoping for.

Amy and Elder must race to uncover who--or what--else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. But each new discovery brings more danger. And if their colony collapses then everything they have sacrificed--friends, family, life on Earth--will have been meaningless . . ."

Well, that book just happened. And honestly, I am happy and surprised with that ending, even though I would have loved an Epilogue.

A lot happens in this book, a lot more bad than good. But that's what makes this story believable. If it were easy, then that could make for a bland story to tell. Amy's parents kinda suck. Her dad is a little bit of an ass, but at the same time, some of his worries and fears are justified. But not to the extreme of being kind of racist. He is over-bearing while Amy's mom is pretty aloof for the most part.

The great thing about Ms.Revis's books are, you can never really guess what is going on. The mysteries are so well done, you are given small clues throughout the three books that will point you to figure things out quicker, but the clues when they are given seem to just be small minor details. (like a list of names belonging to the military in the last book)

Elder and Amy's dad obviously wouldn't hit it off. 'Colonel Martin' just sees Elder as a teenage boy who wants to get his daughters pants. (Not that Elder doesn't, because lets face it he is a teenage boy and Amy is the only girl he's ever met close to his age.) But he is more than that. The people from the ship trust him, they look up to him even though he is years younger than most of them.

We learn pretty quickly that someone is keeping secrets, and the fact that strange monsters are attacking them doesn't help. All the shenanigans and mayhem aside, chapter 67 took me by surprise, and I was spoiled with that information.

The end of this series is a little bittersweet. I am glad that I finally read the series but now it's over, and that makes me a little sad. I doubt that it will happen, but with the somewhat open-ended... ending we got I would love to read more books set in this world. This is a great sci-fi/dystopian series. I recommend it to everyone.