Review : Shades of Earth by Beth Ravis

Title : Shades of Earth (Across The Universe #3)
Author : Beth Ravis
Published : January 15th, 2013 by Razorbill

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 -goodreads

Finally the last book of Across The Universe series! YAY! I must say I felt disappointed the cover was changed. I prefer the 1st and 2nd book covers, but it's not that bad anyway so it's still OK for me.

Amy and Elder left Godspeed and landed in Centauri-Earth. Amy re-animated the frozens and reunited with her parents. Amy is happy, but in the other hand, Elder is scared of the Earth-borns because of what Orion warned him before, soldier or slave. The Centauri-Earth was nothing like they expected. The "monsters" are real. One by one, people are killed by the enemy. Earth-borns and ship-borns have to work together and fight for their lives and it requires sacrifices.. What they don't expect was the true purpose behind their mission. It isn't like what they told it was.

This last book is less thrilling than the 2 books before. It was still a page-turning kind of book but not the hard-to-put-it down one. Some scenes were still breathtaking though. Thanks Ravis for that. The development of Amy and Elder's relationship was good. Little touch of romance here and there but not too much and it didn't ruined the story. The character of new characters are strong and satisfying.

What I like in this book is the scientific touch. The gen modification chemicals, mutations, clones are fascinating. What I don't like was it was easy to guess the villain. I did suspect the person in the first chapters. It was too obvious. The end of the story was beyond my expected but it was a really good one. 

Overall Ravis did a really good job for Across The Universe series. The development of the story is really good. Not too fast nor too slow, it was just perfect. The characters are great. Many breathtaking scenes and sometimes thrilling, just enough to pump my adrenalin. It wasn't hard to picture all the scenes in the book and that even made it more interesting. The writing is easy to understand even for a non English native speaker like me. I recommend this series for YA sci-fi and distopian lover.

My rating : 5/5