Reviews with content warning for Blood - The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

28 reviews

laurenevlyn's review

dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow! This book is awesome and I read it in just one sitting. <The horrifying transition from a (slightly creepy) romance to a full on psychological thriller was, though quite sudden, very well done. > I felt such intense loneliness hearing Romy describe her life and her future. It was very immersive. Great book and brilliant concept!

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inkdrinkers's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I am baffled because how could a book that started as incredible as this one end like THAT.

Romy Silvers was born in space. It was an accident, a by-product of her parents helming a mission to Earth 2 where a new world would be cultivated with a crew of astronauts and embryos. Except - Romy's parents died five years ago and she's been left by herself, at sixteen, helming a spacecraft. When she gets news from Earth that another craft has been dispatched to aid her, she's thrilled that she'll no longer be alone, until communications suddenly halt and she's left struggling to decipher the ghosts from her past from the unknowns of her future.

I'm baffled. I know I said that, but I'm truly baffled. This book started out as a four star for me and held that pretty heavily until the 50% mark. I chose the audiobook and already had a hurdle with the narration because it was grating on my nerves with the tone and the way Romy was written. She's a true 16 year-old, in over her head with things she shouldn't have to deal with, and I feel like that ratcheted up the sheer horror I had, as an adult, reading this. There is so much that happens to Romy in these pages that I felt my stomach twist at, it awoke something in me where all I wanted was this girl to be safe, but also for her to STOP MAKING DUMB DECISIONS.

We get a lot of hints about the reveal at the end. I love some foreshadowing, but even for YA this felt a little too heavy handed for me and the more I realized I could see the exact plot beats, the more I got frustrated with the book time and time again. There was only one moment that truly shocked me at the end, but once I realized how it would lead to the ending and help land this convoluted plot, I was sad that it was the only true twist in this. It's a very character-focused piece, and I really did find myself wanting to root for Romy. There's some mental health rep that discusses on page panic attacks and doesn't mince words, but I just felt like I didn't walk away from this novel with anything at the end. It was... just a story. And while that's fine if it's the kind of story that takes me on a fun journey, this one stalled out halfway and just left me wanting more, wishing it was an adult sci-fi that could dig it's teeth into the broader topics it barely brushed the edges of.

I don't think this is a bad book, but it's not the sci-fi piece I wanted. The tension holds fairly well for the majority of the thriller, ebbing into sheer rage (in my experience) at the end that has a just ending for the characters involved. But it unfortunately didn't have that spark I wanted.

Content warnings: death, death of a parent, blood, graphic violence, isolation, emotional abuse/gaslighting, on page panic attacks/mental health, vomit

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rachelwierick's review

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.5

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kuurankero's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A

4.25

Why is it, that scifi has the most horrifying, brutal stories of all genres? Give these astronauts a hug please!

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marieke17's review

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adventurous hopeful lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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librarymouse's review

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adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This novel really reminds me of the Girl In Space podcast in that it starts with a girl alone in the universe, the last alive aboard a ship in the far reaches of space and gets further and further twisted into a horrific nightmare scenario.

Romy breaking down J's messages and software, the Infinity's med bay, and going through his room aboard the Eternity to find the scratching sound he imbedded into her ship's sound system, the computer system bugs, the quotes from her fanfictions, his parents' pods, her mother's pods, his notes on her, and his forged emails to earth was a well written undoing of her unravelling. It just felt like the book ended too quickly. I wanted Molly feedback. Romy's letter intro to her fanfiction was cute, but the part of me that's been reading adult fantasy and sci fi for the past few years wants information about changes to the NASA internal review process and how they'd change contact protocols to make sure emails that they're receiving are coming from the right people.

It was a good, unexpected, and quick read, though I did almost put down the book forever after the first fanfiction section. They did eventually get more accurate to common fanfiction tropes and the way that fanfiction is normally paced, but all of the fanfiction sections were incredibly short in a way that doesn't reflect the reality of most fanfiction. I guess I am kind of glad that the fanfiction sections were short though because had the first one been longer, I most likely would have put the book down for good.

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