Teaser Tuesdays -- Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!

A planet no human being has ever been on before.

  

The boy stands up.  He's so tall, it doesn't feel fair to call him a boy, but at the same time, he's got a bit of a baby face, as if he's never seen or done anything to make him grow up, to make the angels of his face sharpen with the harshness of age.

page 88, Across the Universe by Beth Revis 

This one has been making the rounds among YA readers.  Amy is a teenager who, along with her parents, was cryogenically frozen and place upon Godspeed, a spaceship on its three hundred year journey to a new planet.  When she wakes up early, she is quickly thrown into several mysteries -- including the question of who unplugged her, nearly causing her death. 

I was not nearly as captivated with Across the Universe as I expected to be.  In fact, it's one of the few times, when reading a YA book, that I think maybe I understand the reservations of YA-skeptical adults -- I was aware, with Revis' book, that I am older than her target audience -- I felt a disconnect that I seldom experience with YA fiction, but perhaps it happens more often with other adults than it does with me.  Nonetheless, I will want to pick up the sequel when it comes out . . . And it brought some of the same large issues to the surface that Battlestar Galactica does for me.  3.5/5 stars

What are you uncertain about?

Image via Wikipedia

So Marc and Angel Hack Life had a blog post recently that asked 365 "thought-provoking questions".  I've picked some of the ones that stood out to me and hope to occasionally use them as writing prompts.

 What are you uncertain about?

Boy, at this exact point in my life, it feels like there are lots of things that I'm uncertain about.  I really have no idea what my life will look like in another 5 months, let alone 5 years.  I'm looking for both work and housing right now and I don't really have even the beginning of an idea of what either might look like.  On June 8th our divorce (and Fiona's name change) will most likely be final and hopefully at some point the settlement from my car/pedestrian accident will be finished as well -- though every so often I'm given a reminder that the physical ramifications will always be a part of my life.  This much uncertainty makes the ground beneath my feet feel pretty wobbly but the people around me do much to keep me on steady ground.

On a less practical/more philosophical note (though with no illusions that I have anything even slightly new or original to say on the subject), I realize more with each passing day that I'm not really sure what I think about life after death.  And as silly as this sounds, I think it was much more Battlestar Galactica than being hit by a car that made me start thinking much more about my own mortality and that of humankind in general.