The Loneliest Girl in the Universe was not what I expected, although it seemed like quite a usual storyline at first. I expected the book to follow a typical young adult novel plot of a girl alone in space, who falls in love with a boy she learns is coming her way. The author cleverly created a very simple looking story in the beginning, almost too easy. For example, Romy Silvers, an astronauts' daughter, alone in space, doing normal teenage things like reading cheesy stories and picturing handsome guys, but in an environment very abnormal for an eighteen year old. The young captain of The Infinity is eager to meet her new companion as he sets off from Earth in a new and better spaceship. As their online relationship grows, the plot gets thicker and darker, and it's almost as if even the author was just fooling us with her stereotypical sounding love story, that we first read. The tale evolves into something completely different, a terrifying revenge and a life or death situation for the young passenger. 

I enjoyed this book more and more as I read it, particularly because the plotline changed so quickly and dramatically. Lauren James did a fantastic job at misleading me to think I had started a somewhat average and maybe even boring love story set in the stars, but quickly turned the tables as the character began to fear for her life and the populating of the planet she was to inhabit. I really liked this book, because the element of space adventure mixed with something dark and mysterious created a very intriguing novel that I would highly recommend. This book is a good read for fans of other space travel and romance novels such as The Loneliness of Distant Beings, which you can find a review for on my Teen Ink page. Although very different stories, there were similarities in the plot and style of writing between the two.