I fully admit to making it through two pages of this book before I got so angry I had to quit. The narrator kept saying things like "It looked like winter, although winter hasn't existed for hundreds of years" or "that animal reminded me of a whale, but they were all dead now and their bones filled the sea." What?? How can a teen make all of these comparisons to things that they never knew and that literally do not exist? It felt insulting to the reader's intelligence.

I've always loved young adult novels. I like throwing them into my reading habits, especially after a non-fiction binge. But I'm starting to wonder if I'm growing out of YA, or maybe just a certain type of YA isn't for me anymore.

(How pretty is that cover tho?!)

The Last Girl on Earth read more like fan-fiction than a novel, and left tons and tons of unanswered questions.
We learn next to nothing about the Abdoloreans and I find myself with a long list of questions about their species.
Why do they look (mostly) like humans
Do they only eat fruit? Why?
Are they just a species of warriors, taking over planet after planet?
Next on my list of things I didn't like. The characters were so underdeveloped.
I learned so little about the people in Li's life that I honestly don't think I would've noticed if they all just disappeared. As I write this I can only even remember the name of two or three other characters.
The one character I remember very well is Braxton. And that's only because he is so terribly written. Without giving away spoilers, this characters personality is a shit show.
He goes from flirting with Li, making jokes with her, being a complete dick, threatening her, and everything in between. Other than the fact that they're both competing for the position of officer, Braxton's motivation for his behavior is non-existent. He seems to treat all other characters the same way, but singles Li out, but why? Just for a plot device?
And finally, love at first sight. Li and her sister (whose name I can't remember now) both manage to fall in love. I realized at the end that the time frame surrounding the story was longer than I thought it was, but still, the quickness that theses too "girls" fell in love was kind of ridiculous.
The highlight for me was the ending. I was kind of fed up at this point but found myself surprised by the way everything turned out. It was a little too "wrapped up with a bow", but still a nice little twist ending. I do want a short (very short) little novella to tell me the gist of what happened next.

1.4//5 Stars 😞😞😞😞😞

Release date Jan. 23rd 2018

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

mean, I essentially skimmed this (my only talent) and finished it in like an hour? And it wasn't completely terrible; it just missed being great by trying to be a sweet romance.

I actually tend to like these small-scope sci-fi books. They offer a great opportunity for exploring the nature of humanity. Books like The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet? You all know I ate that book up. The issue here is the lack of genuine exploration. There are some interesting ideas and concepts here, but nothing really happened. And when things finally did start happening, the ideas weren't explored.

♔ For example, there's an idea here that humans are inherently evil due to how they ruined the planet. Which is a really interesting idea and I'm pretty sure the author knows this was an interesting idea. But it doesn't really get explored beyond like four lines.

♔ I also wished that the concept of prejudice had been explored more. Whoever wrote the blurb has never read the book. No character in this book is inherently evil because they're an alien. That's just not a factually correct statement. To all basic ideas, these aliens are exactly the same as us. And I actually liked that. I like the idea of an exploration of prejudice in this setting. It could've been something along the lines of The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet. But nope. There are around three lines referring to prejudice, but it's never legitimately explored.

♔ There's also the entire idea of the resilience of humanity that could've been explored. That's a great idea to explore. It just doesn't happen.

I could go on. The point is that nothing is explored with the depth I wanted it to be.

What makes me sad is I think the author knows these are interesting ideas!! The book comes so close to what it could have been. She just chooses to focus on some petty love drama and instalove instead. None of the characters here were really built up enough for me to care about their connections. I did like the friendship between our protagonist, Li, and her friend Mirabae. I also liked the familial relationships. But did either ever give me any emotions? Uh. Nope.

What's even more annoying is that I could've gotten past all this instalovey packaging if the characters had been stronger. Instalove is a necessary device here due to the time frame, but it could've felt natural rather than false. If the characters are strong, it can feel natural. Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone makes instalove feel natural by building up the two lead's loneliness and desperation for a connection. There is so much potential in that for a really well-written, character driven one-shot.

This is going to sound weird, but I have a firm idea as to how I would rewrite this. First step: focus more on Li's loneliness as the only human in the world. This makes the theme of the concept clear and builds up the possibility for romance. Second step: don't have her see Ryn as attractive until they've had a couple friendly interactions. This makes their connection feel authentic rather than a tropey little romance inserted for the hell of it. Third step: more inner meditation and dialogue. Boom. The plot doesn't have to change, the writing style doesn't have to change, nothing has to change besides those three things. Bam. You have yourself a five-star book.

Before I finish this review, I'll add one more positive. I liked the casual diversity. The protagonist is biracial, and there are several mentions of other characters dating people of the same gender. It's a little thing, but it did make me happy.

(I actually ended up getting a physical arc of this before the netgalley approval, but this does not change my opinion. Review will appear on blog about a week before release.)

This was a much lighter read than I expected. I really enjoyed The Last Girl on Earth, but for reasons I didn't expect. At its core, this book is all about friendships, love, and family. I enjoyed the humanity of non-human beings. The story had a lot of deeper, well thought out ideas, that didn't get elaborated and could have. It could stand to be a bit longer and touch further on more topics that I am still questioning. Feels like it needs a sequel or a trilogy.

A very short read with a lot of unanswered questions

I received this free eARC novel from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Li is a human girl. Not a big issue, right, being on Earth and all? Except it is, because when the Abdolrean race came to Earth, they killed all of the humans, making their race extinct. Li was saved by a Abdolrean, one who knew her biological mother and father and swore that he would protect Li and raise her as his own daughter.

So Li has had to learn to survive like an extraterrestrial race - one that dominates humans. She has to be stronger, faster, smarter, and can live among them without anyone suspecting that she is the last of her kind.

With her testing coming up to determine where she is going to be training for the next 7 years, Li is a little bit stressed right now. She definitely doesn't need to be falling for an alien guy, when she has to make sure she can become an officer - which is one of the rarest and hardest job to get.

But Ryn snagged her eye the first time she saw him, and he was definitely interested in Li as well. It was a match made in heaven, but a lot of forces are trying to get in the way of their feelings for each other.

As much as Li is loving her time with Ryn, she does realize that she is risking her life for him, when she needs to focus on her life and career.

Things get extremely worse by the end of her training, and Li is going to have to make some tough decisions to determine what will be her future.

Okay, I would probably have given this book 3 stars, rather than 4, but it has so many negative reviews on Goodreads that I wanted to try to give some positivity about this book for potential future readers.

I enjoyed this book. I didn't think that there was in "instant" love connection between Li and Ryn - it did take a few chapters for them to finally hook up, and that is pretty typical for a YA romance/sci-fi/any genre really. She didn't see him across the room and walk over to make out with him, so it took a little flirting and intense eye contact before they decided to be together.

And since this is a shorter book, it happened "all of the sudden" because of that reason as well, I would guess.

I felt for Li because she was literally the only one of her kind in a place where they loathe her species. So Li had a lot of feelings going on inside of her, and she is also a teenagers, so she's expected to be going through a lot of different emotions.

And to top it off, she has to become another species that is BETTER than her species. If that isn't intimidating, then I don't know what is. In fact, Li is pretty badass when you think about it.

Now, there were some things that I think could have been better in this novel, but overall I liked it a lot.

Though one of the things that really frustrated me was when they mentioned how the Abdolreans thought that humans were violent and mean and deserved to be demolished. And how that made Li feel like they were right when she had to DEFEND HERSELF AGAINST ABUSE!!! Because she was getting attacked, and Li decided to fend for herself, she instantly thought that she was violent because of that action. BUT IT WAS SELF DEFENSE AND THAT IS JUST WRONG!!! WRONG!!!

Okay, that was the part that I was most mad about, but I get it. It was part of the back story, and I'm still getting over it, but it's still not enough for me to be giving this book a low star rating.

I think that will be a lot of readers who will enjoy this book when it gets released in January 2018. I hope others will appreciate the beautiful story that Alexandra Blogier created and how intricate she created all of the different universes.

I would definitely be interested in a sequel to see what else happens to these characters, and I am never hoping for a sequel because that means I will be waiting forever for it.

I really enjoyed this! So glad I got an eARC novel!

What I liked best was that this was a quick read! The characters were developed, and the new world was interesting! It makes me wish I had a set of gills! And the romance was cute!