Now patriciar

This book consists of some sneezes of awesome, many parts of below average (especially the pacing) and some okay parts. I don't know.. I think the author is a great person from what I can tell so far, so I'm sad to say that I really didn't enjoy the book. (The rating feels wrong, too. :/ That's the problem with Twitter/Blogs: Once you see how awesome authors are.. ;))Review:On my blog.With A Million Suns waiting to be read, it made sense to me to review this book today. I read it a few weeks ago, and thought it wasn't a bad read, but I had some problems with it, so I think my ultimate rating would be: "Not for me."This can be explained by pointing out that I am not a big fan of secrets in books. There are those secrets that make sense and keep the story going and then there are those that ARE the story. I don't like the latter. Mainly because I think plotlines should consist of more than secrecy and ignorance, but also because to the reader it is frustrating to know more than the protagonists or to be left in the dark for too long.I don't want to talk about the writing style too long. I didn't like the pacing very much, and thought that it was part of the reason why I thought this book was rather boring for way too long.Set in a future and on a spaceship, Across the Universe, is narrated by Amy and Elder. Amy is a young girl, who, together with her parents signed a contract or something to be on the ship for 300 years and live on a new planet. She's been frozen and in the spaceship where Elder lives. He'll one day become Eldest, the leader of the ship. There is an incident and she's unplugged from the thing that keeps her in stasis, so she wakes up (almost dies!) and is really confused, afraid, alone, you name it. But she isn't the only one who's been through that. Except that she's the only one awake and alive.She doesn't know anyone on the ship and realizes that most of the other people are very.. uneducated and unintelligent. Those who aren't, still are ignorant because Eldest controls what they learn, what they are taught. He makes them believe that something is wrong with them and not with the puppets. (As I call them) Amy - and the reader - knows that to be untrue, but the people believe what Eldest says, and with only Elder and Harley on her side, and crazy people all around her, it's hard for Amy to prove she's right, to understand what's going on and who's behind the murders.Harley was a very interesting character with much potential, who in the end did some things that should have been explored more intensely. Elder was a guy who was easily disliked. All of them were a little shallow/flat and I think Revis spent too much time explaining certain things, while she disregarded others. I'm not fond of any of the characters and have major problems with the secrets. It frustrated me to read that Elder i.e. believed Hitler was a good guy*, because while I can see why he was taught this bullpoop, I know better and I want Amy to be a little less "frozen" and step up. She was reasonably afraid and confused about her situation, yet I had problems with her reactions and emotions.All in all I think it was not a bad book for Young Adults. I don't understand the hype and I didn't like the pacing or the characters, I don't think it's a pageturner or a masterpiece. But I don't think it was a waste of trees either, so I'll say it was a 2.5 stars read. That being said, I still will read the second book. I think I'll like it more now that some secrets have been unraveled!* Random, but incredibly unbelievable, except that it's not, because it's happening all the time, but here we go anyway. Also known as Cencorship:A fellow German blogger and all around great person pointed out in her (German) review that the person(s) responsible for the German translation cut the Hitler comment. I stole the quotes below from her (and Crini).I can't even explain how sick I am of this shit. I wrote and rewrote the following text and decided to delete most of it then anyway, because as a German (and I think of myself as a German, even though my father is from Vietnam) I'm not able to say too many things without podcasting a certain image. In short: I'm tired.I'm tired that Germany treats itself and it's citizens like potential criminals when that is just as racist as what we are obviously still accusing ourselves of. (Oh the irony is not lost on me.) Despite the horrible, unforgiveable things members of our family might have done to other people - maybe even people we are related to as well - treating us like the nutjobs our great-grandparents might have been doesn't change anything. It makes it all so much worse.“He doesn’t like ‘disturbances,’” I tell Amy. “He doesn’t like anyone to be different at all. Difference, he says, is the first cause of discord.” “He sounds like a regular Hitler to me,” Amy mutters. I wonder what she means by that. Eldest has always taught me that Hitler was a wise, cultured leader for his people. Maybe that’s what she means: Eldest is a strong leader, like Hitler was. The turn of phrase is unusual, another difference between us, another difference I’m sure Eldest would hate. Amy hops up from her seat at the window.The German scene would be what I bolded above, plus a "Who does he think he is?" before the "Amy hops from her seat at the window." or if you want to see the German scene:“Er mag keine Störungen. Er mag nichts, das anders ist. Er sagt, dass Andersartigkeit die erste Ursache für Unfrieden ist.” “Für wen hält der sich?” murmelt Amy und springt von ihrem Platz am Fenster auf.