Alone by Robert J Crane

This is the first post in a series I’m doing where I pull over reviews from my blog I kept for a few months when I was at university in 2015. I am going to be revisiting the books I reviewed back then and comparing how my thoughts and views on them have changed.

 First up is Alone by Robert J Crane and here’s what I wrote in 2015;

This book is brilliant. It centres around a girl called Sienna Nealon who has had what you could call an unconventional upbringing. I’m going to mention now that this book deals with some adult themes and emotions and a lot of violent imagery, which may not be suitable for younger or easily upset readers. This book is more of a success story though rather than focusing on where Sienna has come from it guides you through all her accomplishments and struggles, with just the right amount of reminiscence that you are able to fully understand where she comes from and why she makes the decisions she does. The book takes you through her first time in the outdoors, meeting her long-lost half-brother and finding a place where she can actually begin to feel like herself. 

This is one of the best science fiction books I have ever read. This book reaches just the right balance between action, emotion and sci-fi brilliance.  This book is part of a series called “The Girl In The Box” and if you read the first one, you’ll need to be prepared to read all the others. They all continue to tell Sienna’s story as it unfolds and it is truly amazing. Crane has managed to create a real depth of character which can rarely be achieved in these types of books. Sienna is one of the most stubborn, awkward, violent and caring characters you will ever read a book about and this in combination with Cranes writing style makes it a very entertaining and interesting book to read which means that you really will fly through it, if not the whole series.

After re-reading the book now I still agree with everything I said back in 2015. I feel a lot more anger towards Sienna’s mother now for how she treated her and marvel at how Sienna is still such a relatable character despite this. She is very impulsive yet still manages to judge most of her decisions well after first arriving at the Directorate, for example not creating a huge scene in the cafeteria when one of the others there begins to call out her previous mistakes in front of everyone.

At the date of writing I believe there are now 15 books in the girl in the box series and 29 in the following series “Out of the box” which follows Sienna’s continuing journey with some of the books focusing on other characters such as her brother Reed who we were introduced to in this first book. If nothing else this is truly testament to how popular Cranes books are and his devotion to his characters and fans. His writing style is very smooth and he is able to use Sienna’s internal monologue to really set the tone which helps him avoid any dull or flat spots in the story. As someone who has read all of the first series and a good whack of the second I can say there hasn’t been a bad book among them and I highly recommend you give these books a go.