Riley Redgate

When the president's daughter--eighteen-year-old Leigh Chen--ends up on the only ship escaping a dying earth, she and a group of teenagers must grapple with the challenges of what it will take to survive as the last remnants of humanity.

Alone Out Here

Shay

I have so many thoughts about this book but trying to organize them is a little difficult because I am still very confused about everything that happened haha.

Alone Out Here was pitched as Lord of the Flies in space, and of course that means I had to read it immediately. 

Let's start with what I liked — Leigh, the main character, was incredibly relatable. She was stuck in a position where she'd been taught her entire life how to be a mediator and how important it is to keep the peace. This became such an integral part of her personality that she struggled with standing her ground, being confident in her decisions, and taking sides in arguments. We process some of these thoughts and emotions with her real-time as she's going through incredibly stressful events and making decisions that are at times life-or-death. And though there are several points in the book where she's objectively wrong or she takes a bad stance on something, it still doesn't make you dislike the character because you get to see and experience her growing from that point as she improves as a person and as a leader. In many ways Leigh is finding herself at the same time we're finding her and Riley Redgate wrote that aspect of this novel very well.

I really liked some of the minor characters. The addition of different languages being spoken by different members of the crew was really cool. On a side note, I want a language translator that works like theirs - translating dozens of languages in real time. That would be so cool.

I also really loved that it was a space adventure. I recently read Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir and ever since then I've been binging science fiction space adventures. I loved every aspect of that. The detail about their ship, exploration into the issues with the ship, problem solving, etc. — I loved all of it and there was certainly quite a bit of that in this book. But the parts of this book that I loved the most were the small character development moments. I didn't feel like we got many (or enough) of them but there were a few moments where it was just Leigh and one other character and they would talk or spend time with one another and those small glimpses were the only moments where I truly got to see the development of the supporting characters. And it felt like I got to see more of Leigh in those moments as well. 

But if I'm entirely honest there were some things about this book that I did struggle with. The first being that there were so many continuity errors and obvious logic issues that I struggled a lot with following the story at times. I don't really mind plot holes sometimes as long as it isn't distracting or repetitive but the issues in this book kept adding up and as a whole it's hard to ignore. 

At the beginning of the book the first chapter is a setup for context. After all, we end up in space with a bunch of teens who don't know how to take care of themselves or how to fly a ship and the author had to logic a way for that to happen... and what she came up with was a supervolcano that was going to errupt and make the air unbreathable. Fair. Sounds pretty cool. I love volcanos and a massive eruption sounds both epic and like my worst nightmare. But in execution it felt like a barely thought out, very glossed over plot device rather than a solidly developed set-up because it was a barely thought out, very glossed over plot device. I wanted more. I wanted to see and understand the set-up. I want to see Leigh in her life before all of this happened. I wanted an explanation of why this was such a big deal and how it was supposed to have happened and I didn't get that from the book. There were a few glimpses from flashbacks but those don't happen until much later in the book and skipping that at the beginning leaves the plot in at a point where what just happened doesn't feel nearly as epic or as horrifying as I expected. 

And a lot of the issues I had with this book could have been explained away by the fact that the entire crew are kids and they're all stressed out and struggling to cope with what's happening to them, but I didn't feel that the author embedded that into the tone or theme of the novel well enough to make it believable. There were one or two major things that tipped you off that maybe people are extremely stressed, but the novel over all had a pretty light feel to it. Any indication of how people felt was mostly filtered through Leigh, who, for several reasons is unreliable and downplays the stakes. As a narrator, she had a way of making things seem like they were fine even when they weren't and while that was effective from a character building angle (because we get a character with an authentic depiction of a coping mechanism) it was also a detriment to the plot because filtering everything through her eyes also filtered it through her nonchalance and that downplayed the importance of what was happening or how other characters felt.

I think another reason we don't really feel the tone shift is because the author picked up right when the world went to shit. Aside from one or two flashbacks with her friends (which are, again, filtered through Leigh's nonchalance and insistence that everything is fine) we don't feel that distinct 'oh shit, everything has changed, my life is over' dread or panic. Leigh takes it all in stride and the only indication that anything is wrong comes up once or twice as part of a conversation and then it's over as soon as it comes. I didn't get enough time with Leigh actively processing her emotions on page and going through those stages of grief or loss. Having that juxtaposition of Leigh before and after the world ended would have, in my opinion, also strengthened her as a character because we'd have seen how those events impacted her and how her coping mechanisms changed who she was while she was on the ship. 

I know it would have made it a much longer book, but I would have preferred that over having it missing entirely. Better character development would have made this a much stronger novel because it would have put into perspective how important it was to Leigh that she made the decisions she did when she made them. Instead, it felt like I was just along for the ride and sometimes things would be explained in a dialogue afterwards but most of the time it wasn't. 

I didn't realize how much all of these issues bothered me until I got to the end of the story because generally I am willing to ignore a lot of inconsistency for the sake of a character I kinda like and a good ending, which I was begging for at this point. But (view spoiler)[sadly, it didn't deliver. At the end of the book the characters make it back to earth after going off on their really long and unnecessary journey, only to find out that the radio on the ship didn't work and that's why they couldn't make contact with anyone. Earth was perfectly fine and the volcano didn't explode, the base was bombed and that was the loud boom they heard. So... people died, kids betrayed each other, and we went through this entirely unnecessary plot for literally no reason at all because nothing actually happened... (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[I mean, the ending effectively destroyed the stakes in this novel. Making the ending be a 'oops, turns out they made a really expensive mistake and none of it was real' was just a detriment to the plot because the only thing that had me still hanging on (albeit by a tiny thread) was the fact that yeah, all of this was illogical but these kids just lost everyone and were in a high stress moment. Even though what happened was bad, they'll learn from it and future generations will learn from these mistakes. But no. The character who wasn't afraid to call people out on their BS and who was actually right the whole time died for literally no reason at all. (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[Not to mention!!! At the end Leigh gets stabbed in the back (literally) and I've read over the last page four or five times and I still can't tell if that was meant to imply if she died or not. And because of all the aforemetioned issues I really don't know if it was on purpose or not. (hide spoiler)]

Despite all of this I can't help but have kinda still liked the novel because it made me feel so conflicted, not only about issues that seem black-and-white but also about the characters, relationships, and about how I felt on the book as a whole. I can't help but think that the reason I feel so strongly about the issues I had with this book is because I liked the characters and the story enough to care. Usually I would just DNF and move on, but there was something about this book that kept me hanging in there and I can't put my finger on what it was. 



Content Warnings: Graphic depictions of Death, Gore, Bullying, Child death, Grief, Injury/injury detail, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Confinement, Suicide, Blood, Classism, and Murder.  Non-spoilery details under the spoiler tag. 

(view spoiler)[The entire crew are kids. There are several deaths, including murder, descriptions of blood, injury, and gore. The kids are processing grief of losing their families as well as deaths of each other. There is one suicide attempt in the book and mention of other potential suicides. A lot of this book contains bullying, people forming into cliques and being toxic to each other. Just picture high school in space and you've got it. (hide spoiler)]

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this e-arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Alone Out Here

Author:  Riley Redgate

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Diversity: Gay side character

Recommended For...: young adult readers, sci-fi, apocolypse

Publication Date: April 5, 2022

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Age Relevance: 14+ (religion, death, violence, gore, grief)

Explanation of Above: Religion is mentioned sporadically throughout the book. There is death, violence, and gore mentioned in the book and it talks about the apocalypse. There is also some grief in the book as well.

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Pages: 400

Synopsis: What do you stand for, when you're one of the last left standing?

The year is 2072. Soon a volcanic eruption will trigger catastrophic devastation, and the only way out is up.

While the world’s leaders, scientists, and engineers oversee the frantic production of a space fleet meant to save humankind, their children are brought in for a weekend of touring the Lazarus, a high-tech prototype spaceship. But when the apocalypse arrives months ahead of schedule, First Daughter Leigh Chen and a handful of teens from the tour are the only ones to escape the planet.

This is the new world: a starship loaded with a catalog of human artifacts, a frozen menagerie of animal DNA, and fifty-three terrified survivors. From the panic arises a coalition of leaders, spearheaded by the pilot’s enigmatic daughter, Eli, who takes the wheel in their hunt for a habitable planet. But as isolation presses in, their uneasy peace begins to fracture. The struggle for control will mean the difference between survival and oblivion, and Leigh must decide whether to stand on the side of the mission or of her own humanity.

With aching poignancy and tense, heart-in-your-mouth action, this enthralling saga will stay with readers long after the final page.

Review: For the most part I thought the book was ok. It was an interesting set-during-the-apocolypse book and the book was also a good story with a Lord of the Flies aspect. The book had great character development and world building.

However, I had a lot of issues with the book. I thought the book had a horribly confusing beginning and it didn’t immediately grab me. While most of the confusion was cleared up later in the book, it was still overwhelming for me in the beginning. The book had a lot going on as well that wasn’t well explained. 

Verdict: It was ok, just not for me.


Alone Out Here

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