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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…

Okay so this book is crazy. Craaaazy. Crazy good, but mostly just heckin’ crazy. I saw this book on a shelf of signed books at YALC back in July, and I knew it wasn’t out yet. I knew it was an ARC, and considering how much I adored The Next Together, I just had to pick it up.

And Lauren James has not let me down. This book was so different to how I expected, so different to her other writing and the synopsis. This book shocked me constantly, in all ways but none bad.

There are so many things I adored about this book. Let’s just start by saying I finished this book in a day. A day! It’s been so long since I’ve ever finished a book in a day, it so rarely happens that I can’t remember it happening since I’ve been blogging!

“On my very worst days, I think of nothing but how vulnerable I am out here.”

Romy makes for an awesome main character. She’s a strong young woman who I admire greatly, and I felt a really strong connection to her. It’s great to feel so close to a character in just under 300 pages. I also love how she was a woman! We don’t often see women able to survive so much on her own. She is such a great role model for young readers today. I love how she wrote fanfiction about her favourite TV show, it made her seem so real and relatable for someone in space!

I also think her relationship with Molly (her counsellor) was very well written and more needs to be in YA.

The setting was awesome and very well described. Spaceships are not often used in YA, especially for a romance story! It gave the story a unique aspect that reminded me of Illuminae.

“I’m balanced on the edge of oblivion with only a fragile skin of metal separating me from the void of space.”

There were so many other awesome things about this book. The plot was so fast paced and definitely a one-sitting read! I love the complicated mystery/thriller aspect, and it made for such an intense story that I literally couldn’t stop reading.

Aside from the counsellor, other parts of the story were also very important. Some of the other situations caused Romy a lot of anxiety and even panic attacks, and they were written so well!

So overall, this book was amazing in many different ways. It’s definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year, and possibly my favourite sci-fi ever (even over Illuminae!).

★★★★★

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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