ARC Review: Shades of Earth by Beth Revis

Title: Shades of Earth
Author: Beth Revis
Series: Across The Universe #3
Genre: Young Adult Sci Fiction
Publisher: Razorbill-Penguin
Pub Date: January 15, 2012
Pages: 369 pages
My Copy: ARC that I got at NYC Comic Con

Book 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 Centuari-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.

Book Review:

A fantastic ending to this wonderful trilogy. This book met all my expectations of what I hoped for would be a great third book. It really delivered for me on a lot of levels and I wasn’t disappointed at all, but impressed with the way that this book concluded the series.

One of the things that I felt was much more important in this book and Revis did that was that the relationship between Elder and Amy got to me more special and romantic. I felt that now that Elder and Amy are on the planet, there are some more challenges to their relationship, but through those challenges they grow stronger as a couple. One scene in particular in this book really is one of those moments that you just say yes, yes, yes, finally. This scene is really emotional and pulls at your heart strings. I thought that Elder and Amy have seen their fair amount of challenges through out the previous books and this one is no different.

I mean the planet is harsher than they thought, plus the way things are when Amy’s mother and father and the rest of the people that are awakened. This leads to a lot of conflict between the two groups. There seems to be always a conflict in the books and speaks about racism in a way that seems realistic. You have two groups that want to survive and make the planet home, yet the Military group has their agenda which conflicts with Elder’s group that looks alike. It’s a very weird clash of ideals.

Also the conflicts and dangers of the new planet are very realistic. You see a lot of characters die in this book, but their deaths are terrifying because you never know what’s on the planet. Both groups need things and want to survive as well. But they have different ways about going towards the point.

Yet the way this book unfolds is magnificent in the way that mysteries unfold and get answered, plus the way that one person’s actions can affect every body else. What I loved about this book was all the surprises that came out in the last part of the book. I was saddened about a lot of deaths, because I came to really love and care for these characters. 

The core of this book was what human beings do to survive and what it means to be human and how we live with the choices that we make.

Rating: