The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

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. 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 is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit. 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…

This book has had a lot of hype surrounding it for a while now, so when I got the opportunity  to review this, I jumped at the chance. I don’t read many sci-fi books, and this one sounded really interesting and different to the sci-fi books I have read in the past.

The story is about Romy Silvers who is a alone on a spaceship travelling to a new earth. Romy has accepted her fate of being alone in space, but once she hears about a second ship has now launched, she wants to desperately make contact. She finds out that the new ship also only has one passenger on board, a boy called J. The only way they can contact each other is by email, which takes many months to transmit to each other. The same time she is emailing J, Romy also starts to receive some worrying emails from Earth, that could put her mission to the new earth in danger.

Romy was a very interesting main character to read about. I know that if I was Romy, and was travelling in space alone, I wouldn’t have handled it as well as she did. I found her to be intelligent, hardworking, strong and of course independent. There was also times where she was very vulnerable, especially when she was talking about her father.

With this being a relatively small book I knew it wouldn’t take me long to read it all, but I didn’t think I would get it finished in one sitting. I was addicted from the very start and couldn’t put it down until I read the last page. It was interesting, gripping, thought provoking and a very paranoid read. While reading the book I didn’t know who to trust and who to believe, the book made you feel very paranoid. Even though you have Romy as your main character, and the one telling the story, I still found it hard to trust her from the beginning, and that uneasy feeling carried on throughout the whole book.

This is my first Lauren James book and now having read this and absolutely loving it, I will have to check out her other works. I found her writing to be very informative, but not so much that you found the writing to be very info dumpy. With this being a space and sci-fi book I expected there to be parts where the writing went all scientific to explain things, but with Lauren James writing she manages to weave all the information into her writing. Which is always a great thing because you are able to carry on enjoying the story, as well as learning new things as well.

I would definitely recommend The Loneliest Girl in the Universe, for readers who want a space story with a thriller vibe. This book will keep your eyes glued to every page, and will keep you gripped to your seat and you will find it impossible to put down, just like I did. This book deserves all the hype it has been getting recently, because this book is absolutely brilliant.

I rate this book 5/5 stars

***I was sent a copy of this book to review. Everything in this review is my own honest opinions.***