Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to – someone who is light years away?
Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.
Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.
But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?
Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . .
THE MOST underrated book I've read so far. Really. If you loved book 3 of The Lunar Chronicles - Cress and you love horror, put your hands together - you get The Loneliest Girl in the Universe.
The book has it's issues. Like that ending. It wasn't the best and it took me a while to wrap my head around that ending but I'm giving this book 4 stars because it absolutely took me by surprise... in a mostly good way. I read it in (almost) one sitting, and I kept thinking about it long after I'd turned that last page.
That Goodreads description will throw you off. The book is
NOTHING like the description. I was so freaking surprised by how the story turned out and after reading some Goodreads reviews, it seems that
EVERYONE was surprised by how the book turned out to be utterly different from what they'd expected.
↠ Let's talk about the premise. All alone in a spacecraft, heading to a planet no human has ever been to before. That's chilly in itself. If I were Romy, I'd probably have gone crazy due to the loneliness and all the unknown variables. Romy's loneliness is shown more than told which I liked! How she's surprised to hear her own voice, her only human interaction is via the messages from Molly, her therapist; her yearning for other people and for love.
Lauren James brings across the loneliness in such a well-written manner that my heart broke for Romy.
↠ Anxiety rep. It was done wonderfully. Romy's fear of a certain thing that happened when she was young and how because of that she stays away from certain parts of the space ship and is afraid of the dark.
Her fear and anxiety comes raw in the writing and I couldn't help but feel the fear myself.
On bad days, I worry about my responsibilities until my gut cramps and my head feels full of knives.
On my very worst days, I think of nothing but how vulnerable I am out here. I’m balanced on the edge of oblivion with only a fragile skin of metal separating me from the void of space.”
↠ The various formats. Most of the book is regular text but we also have a newspaper article at the beginning and throughout the book we have the emails Romy receives from Molly and later, from J. They made it so interesting because for most of the book these are the only "conversations" or "interactions" between characters.
↠ The lack of dialogue. Romy is all alone so obviously there isn't any dialogue for most of the book. But the
BEST part is I didn't even realize that for a long time. I was never bored despite the lack of dialogue.
↠ The intrigue. From the start, there is a sense of foreboding about Romy's past but we don't know what exactly happened. The author hints at the event but only discloses it much later. This intrigue regarding Romy's parents, what happened to them and why Romy avoids some parts of the spaceship was an important hook for me in this story. This hook is one of the main reasons i kept turning the pages hungrily, wanting to know more.
↠ The plot twist. I admit the twist itself is good. When I, along with Romy realized what was happening, the twist was awesome. But the reason for the twist kind of fell flat for me. I felt there were some stuff missing in the story which made the climax not work so well for me. I mean it's creepy and horrifying but it has it's holes that I wish hadn't been there. And I wish the story hadn't ended where it did. I wish we'd gotten to see more! Currently the book doesn't have a sequel but Lauren James has said, she *
might* write a sequel for this book but it won't be anytime soon. Here's to hoping we do get a sequel for I'm really interested in what happens after the ending!
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Have you read this book? Do you like books set in space? Tell me in the comments below!
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