Alone Out Here is a 2022 young adult science fiction novel by Riley Redgate. It was published by Disney Hyperion and was released in February 2022.
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.
Leigh was an interesting protagonist to follow and also a very complex character in her own right. Her complexity isn't clear at first, but as the story progresses, it becomes obvious not only how she's struggling with the situation at hand, but also the factors that have led her to feel conflicted about the choices she's making. She's a character always looking to find a compromise, a solution to make everyone happy, in a circumstance where there isn't one. Her arc as a character was interesting, she learns to stand for what she believes in and knows to be right, though the ending of her arc felt lackluster. I enjoyed the other characters as well. The story really dives deep into the different ways people will react to trauma. Some characters shut down, some push their way forward, some cling aggressively to the one thing they have left. This not only makes for very interesting and complex characters, but also compelling conflicts between characters. As conflicts arise among the survivors, and sides are taken, there isn't one side that's clearly right and the other that's clearly wrong. While I liked how complex some characters were, there was nuance missing from others. Irina, one of the antagonists, has the singular trait of being argumentative, and only has one brief moment where she's shown to have any depth beyond that. Eli is very hot and cold in terms of personality to the point where she sometimes felt like two different characters. Not every character needs to be fully fleshed out, but it was difficult to connect with certain characters because they lacked depth.
As implied by the blurb, the overall story revolves around Leigh and the other teens aboard the Lazarus figuring out how to survive and deciding what to do next, now that Earth is uninhabitable. As a result, this isn't a story that's action-packed or has a lot of big, exciting moments. Instead, the story focuses more on human-nature and the connections people need to others in order to survive. All of the conflict in the novel comes from characters conflicting with each other, as opposed to an external threat or enemy. This is a very character-driven story. This more human-centric plot works well for this story because it seems the author really wanted to examine themes related to humanity, and how people need others in order to survive. It allowed for a lot of really great character moments. There are some exciting action scenes as the story progresses, and tensions on the Lazarus elevate, and those make the interactions between characters much more intense.
While the author made a great choice to have the plot be focused on the characters, it did lead to some issues as the story drew to a close. Because the plot is so driven by the characters, the big twist at the end of the novel falls completely flat. In the last 5% of the novel, there's a reveal that completely changes and re-frames the events that have happened. The issue was that, because of the pacing of the novel, this was the only possible way the story could conclude. The reveal wasn't heavily foreshadowed, but the novel wasn't long enough for it to end any other way. The narrative then had to explain to the reader "Event A didn't happen, it was really Event B" which both cheapens those past great moments, and leaves the reader with a lot of questions that could've been avoided. It introduces plot holes unnecessarily. It doesn't help that this last-minute reveal is so disconnected from the plot point that preceded it that it feels like the author didn't know the ending while writing the rest of the book. The plot and subplots were building towards one ending, but the reveal completely threw a spanner in the works, and caused the conclusion to be much less satisfying, and in one aspect, disappointing.
I thought the writing in this book was fine. The author did an excellent job describing the setting very well. The text spends a lot of time focusing on how vast and empty the ship is, to create the sense of isolation and it worked really well to reinforce the idea that the characters are on their own. The writing is easy to digest and it's not difficult to follow the events of the story. There is a pacing problem, however. The novel isn't very long, but the story moves very slowly. There are periods of the novel where it feels as if nothing is happening and the events shown are more "slice of life" than anything else. It's easy to quickly lose interest in the story overall with that kind of pacing.
Alone Out Here was an entertaining and engaging read overall. The plot, while not action-packed, was interesting and complex, and posed a lot of questions to the reader. The cast of characters was fun to follow, and each brought something intriguing to the story. I liked the writing in general. At the same time, there was a lack of nuance to certain characters. The conclusion was disappointing and a bit messy. It's a good book overall, and I can think of plenty of readers who will enjoy this kind of story.
Rating: 3.75 Stars
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