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Romy Silvers knows what it’s like to be alone. She’s been by herself since her parents died, trapped on a spaceship bound for a new planet on a mission to establish a second home for humanity. She won’t be alone for much longer, though. A new ship has been launched from Earth with a single passenger on board: a boy called J.
As they start to communicate with each other through email, even though it takes months for messages to transmit, Romy starts to wonder if she falling in love with this stranger. She doesn’t know much about J, but when mysterious messages start to arrive from Earth, Romy realizes that J may just be the only person she can rely on.
As the time until their first meeting ticks down, chaos starts to ensue for Romy and her ship, and Romy begins to realize there are some things that are worse than being alone.
The Loneliest Girl in the Universe is a thrilling, somewhat terrifying, weird little book. Romy is a strong, stubborn protagonist, but she is also flawed and faces many human struggles. She is quite naive and childish at times — understandably so, considering she’s been on her own since she was 11 — but I still found myself frustrated by some of her decisions.
I also found the first half of the story to be slow and boring, featuring so much of Romy’s daily routine that I began to look forward to the next email from J, alongside Romy. However, the first and second halves of the story are so completely different and the transition from slow romance to time-sensitive thriller was so abrupt, it immediately snatched back my attention until the final pages.
Rated: High. Since Romy doesn’t know a lot of things about life, she begins to experiment or internalize the things she doesn’t understand, which leads to getting drunk, lusting after someone she’s never met, imagining a romance with steamy kisses, contemplation of sex and what it would be like, and testing to see if emails are being censored for language. There are a few other sexual references, mention of menstruation, and an in-depth look at PTSD and how different people might react and cope with a horrifying situation. Violence can be somewhat graphic at times, but, for the most part, it remains mild. There are at least eight uses of strong language and a few uses of mild language.
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