Review: Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

ISBN: 9781595143990
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: January, 2013
Series: Across the Universe #3
Page Count: 369 pages

     GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

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 Amy had been hoping for. There are giant pterodactyl-like birds, purple flowers with mind-numbing toxins, and mysterious, unexplained ruins that hold more secrets than their stone walls first let on. The biggest secret of all? Godspeed's former passengers aren't alone on this planet. And if they're going to stay, they'll have to fight.

Amy and Elder must race to discover who--or what--else is out there if they are to have any hope of saving their struggling colony and building a future together. They will have to look inward to the very core of what makes them human on this, their most harrowing journey yet. Because if the colony collapses? Then everything they have sacrificed--friends, family, life on Earth--will have been for nothing.

FUELED BY LIES.
RULED BY CHAOS.
ALMOST HOME.

     REVIEW:

WHAT I LIKED:

• SoE transports us to a whole new world on Certauri-Earth and Revis gives us more of her world-building talent last seen in A Million Suns. Her descriptive passages are so vivid and transport you into the world until you are practically seeing it with your own eyes - and all of this is happening without the descriptions being too long or tedious. Revis is a master!
• Eldest and Amy develop even further, and I can hardly see the children in them any more. Elder is a true leader. Amy finally starts to learn independence.
• Eldest and Amy's romance definitely develops further too. It takes up a little more time than in the first two, but I didn't mind that. I mean, she couldn't quite give him a  key to her apartment and a toothbrush in her bathroom, but things definitely went to the next level. Once again, I was completely comfortable with this book without the romance, and that's not something you find often with young adult novels lately.
• After books one and two, I've found that I had started to feel like I was part of the ship, so through most of this book I thought of it as "us" (shipborns...and me) and "them" (earthborns)
• *****spoiler***** I am so glad that the "aliens" were not scaly green aliens. When Revis tricked us and made us think they were, I was so sorely disappointed, and I was so freaking relieved when it turned out they werent. I loved the mystery and betrayals behind it all, and finding out what the truth really was!****end spoiler****
• The ending... many people didn't like it - they said it was predictable. Yes, it was predictable, if this was any old novel that wasn't this amazing. But Beth Revis was throwing curveballs every which way so I truly didn't know how this one was going to end. I was so relieved when it ended the way it did.
• All the clues and mysteries from this book and A Million Suns were so amazingly put together and believable. At certain points I wondered just how is she going to make this make sense? and then she did it and she blew my frickin' mind again!

WHAT I DIDNT LIKE:

• Revis' descriptions are to be rivaled with - but some of the scenes in this one really turned by stomach. Just....EW!
• The first half of Shades of Earth moved a little slower for me, slower than the first two books, at least. I guess in reality it was paced pretty normal, but compared to the mind-blowingness of the first two, it was just a tad slow. Half way through, though, I was back to being mind-blown.
• I was anticipating the waking of Amy's parents probably almost as much as she was, and I was a little let down. Her mom seemed like a little bit of a nerdy-ditz, and almost unimportant after everything was said and done. Her dad was a huge a-hole. I mean, no one is perfect, so I guess I couldn't expect her parents to be, and I think maybe I was feeling the same way about them as Elder was - that Amy talked them up so much, and they were completely different people than she made them out to be.

     SUMMARY:
I just loved this series as a whole. I think this installment moved slower for me and I wasn't as hooked as I was with the first two but it was still an absolutely fantastic ending to this series. There were minor things I didn't love about the series in general which I outlined in the "what I didn't like" sections of each of my reviews. I loved that this series didn't focus on the romance aspect at all and was more than enough of a story to survive without it. Love Love LOVE the Across the Universe trilogy, and I am secretly praying that it will be made into a TV series because SO much can be done with this one after SoE...so much.

     RATING: ★★★★
4 star rating, I loved this last book in the trilogy, just not as much as the other two. I recommend this to all sci-fi and young adult lovers who can do without the cheesy romance.

Have any of you read this series? Please tell me what you thought? I am eager to discuss this trilogy with anyone who has read it! Agree or disagree?!

A.