Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3)by Beth Revis
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No going back now. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Oh, stars, Amy, I’m sorry.
Well…that was just wow. Remember when I asked for maybe just a little more peril for this final book in my last review? Well, Revis delivered. This book was everything the others were not-it had angst. It had danger. It was perilous.
And I was so shocked when it became so angsty that my stomach twisted up in knots-the other books had all the things above, but in no way did they compare to the level they reached with this installment.
I cannot hear the click of the metal on metal because there is no sound in space, but I know-the magnetic seal locks into place.
But there’s no air in the tube.
No air in me.
Wow. Well. Where do I start?? I don’t even know what to say. This is it. This is the
end.
No more fucking around for these compadres-they live or they die-there is no in-between anymore. They are on the new planet (most of them, anyway) and the scientists and military and, you guessed it, Amy’s parents have been unfrozen. Everyone is together now…causing worse chaos than Elder could have imagined.
But death doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t care if someone loves you, doesn’t want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.
It seems everything Orion was telling them is coming true. Amy doesn’t want to believe that, but Elder sees Orion’s deadly prophecy unfolding before his very eyes and he has no clue what to do about it. The addition of new characters might literally have killed me. More than once my heart stopped because of the precarious situations unfolding and what certain characters were doing behind others’ backs…it was just too much for my unprepared mind. It was sensory overload and my heart just couldn’t take it. I think this comes from the fact that while the first two books had sinister beings and malicious intentions, they were all trapped behind the walls of the space ship. I knew, in the end, it had to all work out. But now,
now
they are in a whole new world with wide open skies and two suns and…and a forest where you can’t see people or things watching and tracking and plotting to kill you.
“Thunder,” Amy reminds me gently, touching my arm.
And then fire explodes across the sky, leaping from one dark cloud to another.
“The frex is that?!” I shout, leaping back.
Amy laughs this time. “Lightning,” she says.
One of my biggest pet peeves in books and movies is when something big happens, I don’t know, someone gets sick and doesn’t know what’s going on and their significant other is waiting until they wake up but…someone sends them away. “She doesn’t need you here blah blah blah YOUR FAULT BLAH.” And the significant other runs away…so when the injured or sick girl or guy wakes up they are alone and the person they want most isn’t around and they wonder…why? Well. Here’s the pet peeve-I hate when directors or authors choose to skim over the realization or confession of why that person wasn’t there when they woke up-a lot of times the authors just leave the situation where they never talk about it, so the one person is forever thinking they were just abandoned. This is only a mere example of what I mean and it’s really all I could come up with, but my point is this: Beth Revis, the author, never does this and I LOVE her for that. SO many things happened in this book that twisted my gut and made me want to hurl my Ipad into the wall, but she never took the easy way out-she always had a reason for every miscommunication and why it was taking so long to resolve…and if something needed to be left alone…well, she was good at leaving me hangin’ at the most pivotal moments.
“Amy,” I say, waiting for her to meet my eyes. “I would never-never-let something happen to you. You know that, right?”
She hesitates before she nods.
She looks so fragile in this moment that it breaks my heart. We both know that I won’t be able to protect her from everything.
But I’ll do all I can, no matter what the cost.
Elder and Amy had several moments that made me so happy and also broke my heart. They have been through a lot. Amy wasn’t sure what Elder meant to her until recently, the people of the ship hated her, and people were trying to murder he and she left and right, no matter the cost. Now they have an even bigger problem, you know, aside from desperately fighting for their life in this new, scary world: Amy’s parents. I’m sorry but what assholes. Poor Elder. I had always loved her fond memories of them from their past life on Earth, but in this one, I saw them in a new, not charming light. It was sickening. But, I do and did understand the protective nature of her father-It was heartwrenching to see all he was willing to do to keep her alive. It broke my heart. I know, broken record, right? And Chris…hmm…Mr. Blue Eyes?? GO JUMP OFF A STEEP CLIFF.
I don’t wait for her to answer him. I can see just fine, and I do not need to stand around and watch as Amy admires some other guy’s eyes. I circle around to the other side of the crowd, then push my way to the front of the group. I try to squelch the jealous rage that’s growing in my heart.
I might have the whole world now, but it’s not enough if I don’t get to share it with her.
Oh gosh, I was done and putting quotes in and I just realized what I didn’t add, dang-it. I LOVED how jealous Elder was in this one. It was so sweet and charming and adorable. He trusted Amy with his whole heart, but what if she has never been entirely his? I loved seeing these new emotions pulled from him and how he handled himself….he restrained himself well, if you ask me. Seeing red most of the time, it took a lot for him to chill his beans (;D) and just calm down…so I admired seeing that unfold and, ugh, okay, I’m just obsessed with him lol. Everyone already knows it anyway.
I stand on my tiptoes to reach Elder’s lips better, but I lose balance, slipping on the wet stones. Elder’s grip on me is so tight, though, that he easily lifts me from the ground, spinning in a slow circle, his laughter weaving in between raindrops to splash against my heart.
Wooh. What a conclusion. I don’t know. I just didn’t really expect it. I read in someone’s review that the end was fluffy…so I suppose I expected that, in all reality. But it wasn’t. I guess I didn’t find the end-all be-all all that thought provoking, but it came together seamlessly, so why would I complain? She told me to look left, but then went right, she said it’s this but it was really THAT. So, I don’t know, she fooled me, so why fix what isn’t broken? And more than that, I adore Elder and I really liked Amy, I can’t gush about them enough. I only wish I could have had way more of them-Because I can’t seem to get them off my mind. Oh, and the creepy undertone where you never knew if you were going to hear that god-awful screech of the creatures or if things were really watching you from the shadows or not??? I LOVED that. Well done, Revis, well done. Now I just wish I knew if she had more books or not-if so, sign me up-Immediately.
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