BOOK REVIEW: THE LONELIEST GIRL IN THE UNIVERSE BY LAUREN JAMES

This book was so bland I forgot about it the second I closed it. The main character had no personality aside from being, like, sentient. There was an attempt at some thriller-y stuff with the plot, but ultimately that flopped too. And the reason these two things did not work for me at all is the writing. Given how short and simplistically written this book was, there was no way James could've been able to give this story the gravity (pun intended) she aimed for it to have. Everything in this book is transparent to the point of being reductive, even cartoonish. The main character is Scared, Stressed, Lonely, as the narrative repeatedly and explicitly tells us. But that's it. There is nothing more to her, no complexity or nuance or complication. And so when James tries to add onto her threadbare characterization a supposedly "intense" plot, it doesn't work. Not to mention the fact that the fallout of the climax is so rushed and resolved so quickly—it gave me the literary equivalent of whiplash.

Simply put, this book felt like a flavourless, plain wafer. Did I enjoy eating it? No. Did it provide me with anything substantial? Nope. Did I eat it anyway? I guess, but in the end it was just empty calories.