Review: Life in Outer Space

Title: Life in Outer Space
Author: Melissa Keil
Date of publication: 1 Feb 2013
Genre: YA / Comedy / Realistic fiction

Author's links:
Website / Goodreads
My rating: 4 stars

Goodreads Blurb

Life in Outer Space is a romantic comedy about a movie geek & the dream girl he refuses to fall in love with. Sam Kinnison is a geek, and he’s totally fine with that. He has his horror movies, his nerdy friends, World of Warcraft – and until Princess Leia turns up in his bedroom, worry about girls he won't. Then Camilla Carter arrives on the scene. She’s beautiful, friendly and completely irrelevant to his plan. Sam is determined to ignore her, except that Camilla has a plan of her own – and he seems to be a part of it! Sam believes that everything he needs to know he can learn from the movies. But perhaps he’s been watching the wrong ones.

My Review

It was sometimes hilarious, sometimes death serious and all of the time quirky and unusual YA book. It tells a story of first love and coming of age of a group of lovable misfits who struggle to find themselves and their place in the world.

The movie quotes and reference  at times came as too much me as someone who is not a fan of horrors and the Star wars saga. Still, it's a very well written story, funny and engaging, taking the reader on a journey in the the world of a group of  very lovable 16/17 year-old misfits. 

Th story is told from Sam's POV and I enjoyed voice a lot. He made sense of the world around him through the movies he was obsessed with and he was borderline OCD about his routine. So, when the new girl in school, Camilla, entered his life, she sent his whole world completely off axis and made him see himself and world in a completely different light. 

Camilla was just wonderful. I was worried that she came off as too good to be true at some point - she seemed perfect, well-adjusted, coping with life with a remarkable ease. Fortunately her perfection was gradually revealed to be just in the eyes of others, and Sam in particular. He saw her, as his complete opposite - someone who, unlike him, knew  how to fit in school and in life. Their friendship which turned into love, showed that she was just as lost and insecure as Sam and his friends. 

Sam's inner musings on life reflected perfectly the confusion of being a teenager. With a dry sense of humour the author made an adequate presentation of the sense of being at a loss, not understanding life, not knowing anything about yourself,  and the others, which is a phase most/all teenagers go through. 

The author has managed to create a very engaging story, realistic and funny at the same time with no excessive drama or dark secrets. All the characters were unique and unusual, yet I found it easy to relate to them and to understand their anxieties. 

I greatly recommend this book. It's funny and up-beat without being cheesy. It put a permanent smile on my face while reading it and it definitely made me feel optimistic and happy about my own life :)