This was a DNF for me. The premise sounds so awesome and promising but everything fell flat -- characters, world building...everything. It had so much potential AND a beautiful cover.

The Last Girl On Earth would have been much better if the sweet romance factor had been eliminated. I loved the idea, but I was told instead of shown. Everything. Not my cup of tea.

I don't think this book is getting any credit for what it is - and for what it is, it's good. It's a YA romance first and foremost, so shelving it as sci-fi or fantasy is secondary at best.

For me, this read as very YA - not overly descriptive, very fast paced, almost middle grade if not for the romance. And for a YA audience, that's totally appropriate. If anything, it's somewhat underdeveloped and too short. Things like the last 10% could have been more in-depth. An epilogue would have given it some closure, although I thought the ending was great. The explanation given regarding the aliens who have occupied earth could have been expanded. The big event also could have been expanded to give the plot more tension.

So overall the story isn't fantastic. But it isn't bad, as a 2.86 GR rating would indicate. For a debut, it's far above that and definitely deserves more.

Humans did such a bad job taking care of the earth that when the Abdoloreans arrived they chose to wipe us out and start over to save the planet. Li was the only one saved and she is a dangerous secret.

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In Blogier’s The Last Girl on Earth, an alien race called Abdoloreans decided that humans do not deserve to live on planet earth. Humanity is destroyed, but Li is secretly adopted by an Abdolorean who befriended her parents. Sixteen years have passed and now Li is a teenager and living among the race that killed her parents and species. Her adopted father has helped her to blend in by giving her fake gills and training her to be smarter and stronger than your average human. But one day, she meets a boy...and everything changes.

The premise of the story was very interesting. Loved the cover too! However, there were too many things that didn’t make sense. One thing that was strange to me was that Abdoloreans look and act exactly like humans, except for being stronger and having gills to breathe underwater. Li’s friends spoke and acted like your average human teenagers - jealousy, lust, loyalty, betrayal, etc... I had to keep reminding myself that this was a different species. The romance had potential; however, Ryn immediately fell for Li. He didn’t know her at all until he met her, and admitted he wanted to kiss her the moment he saw her. For me, romances should be a little more drawn out.

The other thing that didn’t make sense to me was the militaristic society. The young Abdoloreans in this world spend their adolescence training for a military rank that determines their assignment on other planets. At the end of their assessment, they are given three different ranks: Officer, Squadron, and Infantry. Very similar to what the human military has. What was not made clear though, was why Abdoloreans are fighting on all these other planets. Are they enemies of so many different species? Why and what made them so superior?

I really wanted to understand why Abdoloreans were so different from humans other than gills and physical strength. The ending does indicate a sequel, so maybe many of these questions will be answered in book 2. Overall, the writing was very well done and I liked the POV from Li perspective throughout the book, but the alien race was too much like the human race and the story didn’t have the depth that I was hoping for.

Born the last human on Earth, Li was raised by her alien father to hide her identity and to pass as an alien. If she fails to fit in, she will be killed. When Li is conscripted into the army, however, hiding her identity becomes more and more difficult. Her only hope is to become an officer. Soon she meets Ryn, a fellow teenager, and it's pretty much insta-love. Can Li balance a love life and becoming an officer? Will Ryn keep her secret if he finds out? The light science fiction feeling to the book is blended well throughout the book. Despite the insta-love being a little hard to believe, the characters were able to draw the reader into the story easily. Fans of teen romance, science fiction, and dystopic fiction will enjoy reading this book.

Did not finish. Found this book to be lacking quite a bit. It was really hard to continue to read when the plot nor the characters were very interesting.

This story had a lot of fun ideas about humanity and aliens and social structure. Could have gone so much further with all of that wonderful stuff, but instead settled on an instant romance that just didn't feel real. She sacrificed all of her families efforts and blood for a boy basically. Would have rathered learn more about everyone else than the main character.

I loved this book! The full review will be posted soon at kaitgoodwin.com/books! Thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity to connect books to their readers!

I went into this one after taking a break from this sort of space type books, I find I enjoy these books more when I space them out. I thought the whole book was unique and such an interesting concept. I love the idea of secrets having to be kept and everything being on the line. I was engaged and immersed throughout the whole book, there wasn’t any points where I felt myself wandering or needing a break.
I really fell in love with our main character Li, she was such a strong character. I loved her family relationships and how they go up and down and aren’t always perfect. As far as romance goes I really thought there was a bit much. It was heavy and I maybe would have liked a bit less focus surrounding it. I was a huge fan of Ryn, he was interesting and brought a lot of back story.
Overall this was a great story, with some pretty amazing characters. It had my heart racing at points because the scenes were so intensely depicted I felt like I was actually there. I really hope this is not a stand alone because I want more from these characters, even though the ending was satisfying. I will absolutely be picking up more from this author!

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Rate: Not Rating
Recommend: No
Review:
I requested a copy of this book from Netgalley because the synopsis sounded interesting and the cover was stunning to me. I had high hopes for this book and considering the length, I thought I would fly through this book. I was wrong.
Let me begin, firstly, by saying that I did not finish this book. I didn't even make it to 50% before I threw in the towel. Based on that, I viewed it unfair to date the book, though I will never recommend it to anyone. I am the type of reader that needs to be grabbed by a certain point in order to finish a book, which means that even if I end up disliking the book, if I finished it, at some point at the beginning the book grabbed my attention. Obviously this book did not do that.
My main problem with this book is how boring it was, how these a lie s somehow look remarkably human, and how the alien race was able to heal the Earth from. The damage caused by humans in about a decade. I didn't understand how the MC was able to pass as alien for her entire life. I u understand that she has cosmetic work to appear like them, but you would think at some point during her life someone would have gotten suspicious.
I also had a problem with the gills the aliens have, mainly being that the serve no purpose. Seriously, they do nothing. I didn't understand how the MC was going to be able to become an Officer for the alien race and no one suspect she wasn't alien. I mean, it all seemed very far-fetched and unlikely. I like science fiction stories as much as the next person, but this one seemed to not be well thought out and have everything occur in this world of "everything will be perfect because the MC is the MC". Sorry, but even the world of fiction has some rules you need to comply with, like being reasonably cohesive and making sense.
And yes, I did not make it very far in the book, but I didn't have to in order to figure out the romance and decipher that the guy learns she's human but doesn't care because he loves her. In fact, without having read the entire book I would venture a guess that the book has insta-love, the MC is discovered as human and some action happens, but in the end everything is okay with everyone, the aliens learn not all humans are terrible beings, and the MC lives happily ever after with the guy she instantly fell in love with because their eyes met across the room.
I thought this book had the potential to be incredible, but it fell short by having the author want to protect the MC because she is the MC, the insta-love trope, being unrealistic, and just reading as a contemporary instead of a science fiction.

The Last Girl on Earth by Alexandra Blogier is a young adult science fiction fantasy that was heavy on the romance and light on the science fiction/fantasy. Now despite my low rating there were moments that I would start to like this one but in the end I just had too many questions and concerns with the world building to rate higher.

The story centers around Li who is a human teenager that is the only human that survived when Abdoloreans came to Earth and wiped out the rest. She was given to an Abdolorean male to raise alongside his daughter. Now the Abdoloreans basically look the same as humans with the exception of gills in which Li has been given fake ones leading to my first question I pondered, how do you cut open a human and give them gills? Now maybe some plastic surgery or something but all he doctors are gone…..

So anyway as the story starts Li has had her best friend all her life but she doesn’t know Li is actually human, only her Abdolorean father and sister know. But we constantly learn all the things Abdoloreans are better at so Li has been training all her life secretly to pass as one. Again leading me to all kinds of questions with the vagueness of this set up so far.

Then we entered into learning Li is also training for the Abdolorean’s army and about to have her testing when amazing a cute boy enters and Li starts throwing all caution to the wind due to cute boy so yes, insert insta-love. But here I am again thinking why oh why is all of this happening if Li’s race is so top secret? And I won’t mention how the little we get about why humans were so horrible and needed to be destroyed by these aliens just seemed rather silly (having cows is terrible???) since it’s never really fully explained and just brushed over anyway.

So it seemed the entire time I’m reading this book I just had question and question popping into my head on the how’s and why’s which is rather distracting while trying to enjoy a book. But through all that I thought that maybe, just maybe this one would end at a 3 star for me until we get the the final chapters. Now I won’t give any spoilers but let’s just say I walked away shaking my head still with those incessant questions running through my mind so I suppose this one just wasn’t my cup of tea unfortunately.

The cover for this book is SO BEAUTIFUL, but the blurb for this is a bit misleading. The synopsis for The Last Girl on Earth speaks of an Earth in which all humans have been wiped out. The planet has been taken over by Abdoloreans, beings who have special abilities. The story centers on Li, and shockingly, she is the last girl on earth. She grew up in hiding, blending in with her fellow aliens. But at a point, Li will come of age. And it is time to take the tests that will decide her future. Everything becomes a little more complicated when Li meets Ryn, and for the first time, she has someone to live for.

It’s true that the genre is science fiction, and the author did create a world that was original, but it wasn’t fully explored and the plot focused solely on the romance, making the book seem a little more like one of those teen chick-lit dramas. There was some of the world-building aspect of the book that contributed to Li’s future, and it reminded me a bit of the competition in Nyxia, except I kept waiting for the action-adventure to start, but it never did. Instead, it was brought up near the ending, but I wished it had played a much larger part in the story.

The characters were okay; I felt like the romantic relationship definitely moved super fast, since it was the focus of the book. Personally, I never really felt a deep connection with anyone, and I think Li’s feeling of loneliness of being the only human left in the world could have been further developed, perhaps turning into determination or courage that could be intertwined with a more action-driven adventure. Some of the side characters also made decisions and said things that were simply frustrating to read, and I felt like in this world they could have focused on things that were more important than stereotypical teenage romantic drama.

The writing style was really good though. I actually really enjoyed the writing, especially at the beginning of the book. I do think that simply if the book had been longer and the focus had been more on the “last girl on the earth” part instead of the “falling in love” part, this could have been really great. The book is a little short, and the ending makes me wonder if there is a sequel that can actually explore the world more.

While the concept was very cool, the lack of world-building and the insta-love made this a mediocre read at best with the potential to entice teens looking for a swoony romance.

I’m a bit torn here. On one hand, I enjoyed this novel about a teenage girl living on Earth after aliens have obliterated humans and settled as residents. It was a quick read, and in some ways typical of a breezy, contemporary YA. Li has no memory of her human parents, having been saved by her alien father when she was only an infant. She has trained hard her whole life, making sure that no one might suspect that she’s not one of them. This kind of led me to believe that this would be a suspenseful sci-if, but that just wasn’t the case. We follow Li as she trains to be an officer in their military, but honestly, the tension and sense of danger is very low. She bonds with her sister and best friend, and there’s some instalove. But I never felt strongly that Li didn’t belong, other than physiological differences.

There is a dangerous event near the end of the novel, but even that seemed subdued, and Li’s reaction to it was troubling, alien community or not. The actual ending seemed rushed, and the one instance where I longed for more.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Great dystopian/utopian world that was described in vibrant detail and color. Loved the characters. Wish the story was a bit longer or had a sequel - I would've liked to get to know Li and her life/world better. Overall cute YA.

A book with seedlings of potential that did not quite hit its mark.

What I Liked:

The Romance was fun to watch grow as the characters moved closer together and further apart. I liked seeing their love grow even as doubts settled in Li’s mind that they could ever possibly work together.

The Premise was interesting and was part of why I picked this book up in the first place. I like the idea of a world that was inhabited by another species of which some had compassion for the people who originated there while others did everything they could to wipe them out.

Siblings beyond blood. I love that Li has a sister in this book who is very much not anywhere near to being like her. I love seeing familial bonds that extend outside of typical bloodlines.

The Dad is ferocious and kind. He trains Li like a madman, but does it out of a whole lot of love for someone who grew up to be a daughter to him. He can be very overprotective, but considering how this story has unfolded that is completely understandable.

What I Didn’t Like:

The story feels forced. I wish this wasn’t the case, but there are a lot of things about this story that brings you out of it and makes you feel that it doesn’t quite make the mark of believable.

Unnecessary sisterly combat. I wish that this story would have left the two sisters alone, but the fact that Li was trying to tell her sister a truth about a guy her sister was seeing and how it really doesn’t go over well feels very arbitrary. I know that it can be hard to swallow difficult truths, but when it comes to siblings even if anger arises the advice and knowledge should still be able to be accepted.

How human the aliens were. The aliens in this novel had very few differences to the human in this novel. Yes they had gills and yes they had natural abilities that are much stronger then a human, but honestly it wasn’t so different to a human because it is entirely possible for a human to train enough to exude the same strength and endurance. I feel that it made it a little bit harder to believe because it feels like everyone’s base strength is beyond the limits of a humans best strength and for Li to train to fit in doesn’t take away the fact that she is human and that there are limits she simply can’t go past. Especially considering, that she’s going against the best and the brightest and still being a part of the top to be an officer and that’s just a tad unrealistic to me.

It took me a while to even remember the story… It’s been a little while since I’ve read this, but the fact that it took me a bit to recall a lot of details of what happened in this book says that it didn’t really leave any particular special mark on me. That isn’t to say the story was bad. It just didn’t really impact me in the way that every great story should.

All in All:

The Last Girl on Earth was an interesting story that shows what can happen when a world encompasses and destroys most of the other. It is your typical sci-fi that can be a fun read when your in the mood for something with a tinge of otherworldliness. I enjoyed this book, but I wish it reached its full potential.

I requested this book before looking it up on Goodreads, and just... YIKES. I later looked it up and realized that this was being widely hated upon all over the internet. Oops? The Last Girl on Earth had a good premise, and I think it could have been great. However, the writing was extremely unpolished and the characters were entirely undeveloped. The plot was pretty much nonexistent and I was actually confused because none of this book made sense. Its one saving grace was that it was short... And therefore over quickly.

I found this book to be okay and passing as an alien but as a human. I didn't really like the ending and what happened at the end was too fast. I wasn't really a fan of this book.