The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
Lauren James
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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 . . .
I was recommended The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by a friend whilst I was in a reading slump. It was the perfect cure. It’s a very short and quick read, which means it’s easy to get back into the flow of reading. But it is also packed full of mystery and suspense because you don’t quite know what’s going to happen and where it’s leading you. Even after seeing the hype around it, I was completely hit by the plot twist.
I found the pacing at first to be slow, but this gave James a lot of time to really get into Romy’s head. We find out about what it’s the to be born in Space! But also, how isolating that could be. This also helped make it, so Romy was driving the story and it was very character focused throughout. Plus, the pace picks up around halfway through I would say – or at least, I was so invested in the character that I wasn’t bothered anymore.
The writing could sometimes be repetitive, which was annoying. For example, Romy on occasion would speak aloud what was shown in the previous paragraphs. So very show and then tell. But this was really the only negative I could find about the book (plus I was pulling out of a slump so was probably extra grumpy anyway!)
Romy is pretty much on point for how you would expect a teenager to act if she was alone in space and found a guy to talk to (who’s probably near-ish her age). Plus, she’s also highly intelligent as she must survive on a spaceship, which she often needs to fix herself. I found it interesting following her routines, because they feel so normal but also completely not normal at the same time.
I really don’t want to spoil anything, but I wanted to say about how by the end of the book – I could NOT put it down. The Loneliest Girl in the Universe subverts the average plot that you’re assuming will happen and genuinely makes it fun to read. Instead of me sarcastically saying “Oh X is obviously going to happen” I was really surprised about the outcome.
The world building was well done too. You are obviously seeing everything through a Romy lens, so you’ve learned all about Earth although you’ve never been there. I found her pining for things on Earth to be a stark contrast to how I go around in the world (which made me feel a bit more gratitude to the little things like blue sky.
Overall, I loved the book and found it did live up to the hype I remember it had.
Positives of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
- World building
- Character focus
Negatives of The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
- Repetitive Writing
I received The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James from the publisher. This is an unbiased and honest review
