Loner includes some really vivid characters and paints a moving picture of a young women going through crisis. It was oddly uplifting, but certainly heartfelt.

Georgina Young is very good with turns of phrase and the writing style of Loner is really stellar but the plotting and some of the characterization was just not my cup of tea. At the end of the day I unfortunately never felt like I connected with the main character of Lona and she comes off as a bit whiny throughout. The story is incredibly slow moving, anticlimactic, and repetitive in some of its points. I admire Georgina's attempt to bring feminism to the forefront but some points like having good taste being equivalent to internalized misogyny felt a bit forced.

Again I did enjoy Georgina's style of writing so I really look forward to her future work. I highlighted multiple passages throughout as the book is quite witty.

Mega thanks to Netgalley and Text Publishing for the Advanced Reader's Copy.

Not really my thing, thought I would enjoy this more than I did, it sounded right up my street. It’s interesting , but was hard to get into, I’m sure others will enjoy far more, but not for me sorry

I have never read a story like this before, but the front cover really appealed to me so wanted to give it a go.
Loner is about a girl, who is just starting through adulthood who really has no idea of who she really is, or where she wants to go.
It was an interesting read and I enjoyed It, despite it being completely different to what I would normally read.

I didn't end up liking this as much as I wanted to. It's an interesting concept and story but unfortunately just not for me!

I found this book hard to get into. The blurb really spoke to me as a shy Doctor Who fan but the actual story didn’t really make an impression. Maybe I am not the target audience but I found the story slow paced and not very captivating

I'm trying to work out why I chose to read Loner. It was partly the hype; the first I heard of Georgina Young's Loner was that it was winner of the 2019 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing. The description sounded enticing, with mention of roller DJs, Harry Potter fans and old school photography. I suspect I was also riding high on the Normal People wave and may have seen an article comparing Loner to Sally Rooney's exceptionally popular book.
Whatever lead me to Loner was not what I found in the book and that is little surprise.

Had I properly read the blurb, I would have realised that a book about a university dropout aimlessly navigating social isolation, unrequited love and a perpetual sense of failure was never going to be exciting reading. In fact, it was all rather bland.

Perhaps it was that my own memories of university were of an identical inertia, an inability to function that slowly marched its way to a bone-grinding depression? Whatever the case, Loner was not the quirky, uplifting book I was in the market for and perhaps the hint was in the title?

Despite my reservations and lukewarm reception, I strongly suspect that this will somehow become a television series. The critical hype is immense - hence the Text Prize - but for those of us seeking a bit of escape during the worst year ever? Not so much. Ultimately, Loner reminded me of why I don't read New Adult fiction.

I give Loner an okay three out of five stars. Recommended if you're looking for the post-millennial version of Douglas Coupland's Generation X.

Lona is a little bit lost. She has finished high school and done what is socially expected and went to university but she found herself a little lost there too. She has dropped out and is now working a dead end job normally reserved for a teenager and she doesn’t know how to get herself out of this hole. What she is starting to realise is that being a grown up kind of sucks.

I really enjoyed reading Georgina Young’s Loner. I feel like she really captured that un-tethered feeling. You aren’t a kid any more but you still aren’t really feeling like an adult yet all of the decisions you make are now your responsibility. It is a fascinating look at the awkward period in your life and Young perfectly captures the discombobulated feeling.

My favourite thing about Loner came at the end of the book. The whole story was great but the ending gave me an overwhelming feeling of hope. It reminds you that life I long and there are plenty of ways to screw up but also to fix the screw ups. It is very optimistic.

Overall, Loner by Georgina Young is a very good read.

Loner by Georgina Young is available now.

For more information regarding Text Publishing (@text_publishing) please visit www.textpublishing.com.au.

Loner follows Lona - a twenty year old art school dropout unsure of her place in the world. As she travels the murky waters of adulthood we are privy to different parts of her life: her romantic feelings, her familial problems and also her never ending anxiety, fuelled by the fear and doubt of the future. This novel is a highly relatable coming of age novel for twenty somethings that explores the complexities of what we want to do versus what we feel we need to do in this modern world. I believe that this book was quite enjoyable and the writing style of short snappy third person sentences was also easy to read and get lost in. It was also scarily relatable to me, as a twenty something who is also in a liminal state similar to Lona’s. Her feelings were described well and her anxieties didn’t seem to far fetched from real life.

However, I refrained from giving it five stars as I am unsure of the overall longevity of the impact of this book. Though I enjoyed it, the ending wasn’t quite settled for me as I felt there was more to unpack, and I wasn't fully sated though I enjoyed it. That being said, Georgina Young is a fantastic writer and Loner is a stunning debut.

What a nice find. This was the first book I've read from this author and I really enjoyed it. The story was different from anything I've read recently and really captured my attention. It was so well written and the characters were fantastic.

This one was a bit lackluster for me, as I did not enjoy the voice and tone of the story. I thought it was going to be a bit more enticing or grabbing, but I did not find myself interested in it enough. It could be a personal preference, but I think the anxiety and coming-of-age just did not feel realistic at all. I put it down for about a month before I picked it back up and finished it.

Unfortunately I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. The story is a bit boring. There were parts where nothing really happens and the main character, Lona, is at times quite frustrating to read about. Even though Lona is a very relatable character, her actions can be very frustrating.

I do admire Young's ability to honestly capture the struggles of coming of age and going into adulthood and the anxiety that comes with it. It felt truly natural and very recognizable.

Loner reads like it's being recited. The pacing felt off in the beginning but got a lot better throughout the rest of the story. The ending is very satisfying since you have been rooting for Lona and you feel content when you realize she's beginning to find her way.

I was drawn to Loner as soon as I read the description and was so pleased to be given the opportunity to review this new adult novel.

Loner follows a young twenty-something woman who has lost her confidence and passion for her art. We follow her journey of ups and downs, trying to find herself again.

I really enjoyed my time reading this book and found myself unable to put it down! I felt like I connected to the main character, Lona, on so many levels and felt I grew with her character. It was so refreshing to read an honest, unromanticized story of a twenty-something and the struggles, frustrations and joys of being an artist. I feel like we all go through what Lona is going through at some point in our lives. The author done a great job at balancing the hard stuff with some brilliantly laugh out loud moments too. If you enjoy contemporary reads, I highly recommend picking this one up!

Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for a free digital copy of Loner in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! I haven't found myself captivated by a contemporary-set, aimed-at-women-under thirty novel since as long as I can remember.

Lona, our protag of 'Loner', is a fascinating character who I just had to root for. I recognised so much of myself in her, and while in many senses she seemed to be deliberately presented as an "exaggeration", I'm not sure how valid it is to think that because she almost comes across as being somewhere on the neurodiverse scale. Also, perhaps, the non-binary scale, though there is never any overt moment or thought to suggest that the author wants us to consider her to be non-binary. What Lona does experience and think about, often, is the template of young womanhood that she is expected to fit into by society. Something else that really struck a cord with me.

And all this is packaged in fun, quirky writing. Some books try very hard to achieve this; interestingly, 'Loner' reminded me most of 'Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine', but not in the sense that it was desperately trying to emulate the success of that book. Lona and Eleanor have very similar thought-processes when it comes to thinks like pop culture. This is what generated most of the laughs for me, and I did have quite a few of them! There are some great turns of phrase too (for example, women's purses are described as "fat steaks of leather", or something along those lines that really struck to me).

For those readers who want neat, happy endings, this is not the book for you. But then, life often isn't like that. I appreciate that the author had the guts to reflect that in 'Loner', and I very much enjoyed reading it. I'll certainly be on the lookout for her work in the future.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advance ebook copy, in exchange for my honest review)

Reading this book was an experience.
I actually finished this a couple of days ago and wasn't able to properly sort my thoughts and feelings about this book into a coherent review and I still fear that this is going to end up all over the place, so sorry about that.

Lona as a character was frustrating. I was frustrated with how much I could relate to her in some instances, how much I wanted to be like her in others and then there were some scenes where I was just downright annoyed at her and couldn't believe how she managed to have any relationships - romantic or otherwise at all.

But, and this is I think important, despite her many flaws and issues, she is so deliciously human that I sometimes even forgot she wasn't actually real. That was achieved through the truly fantastic writing.

I'll be honest, it took me a while to actually get into the writing. The very short sequences with the strange headlines were... new. Not what I am used to. But oh my god, it works so well. It is so damn Lona, it's infuriating. And I mean that in the best possible way.

Was this book life changing? Probably not. But it definitely did something to me. It made me think, about humanity and about myself and about how each and every one of us has baggage and we don't know about when we first meet another person. How there is always a deeper water under the surface.

And this is why I love this book. These thoughts and musings completely sneaked up to me and I was surprised by the amount of thinking I did while reading. I honestly thought this was going to be a fairly quick read about a new adult girl who is different but not really and who has lost her way a little. It was so much more.

I recommend this book to... literally anyone. Go get Loner!

Absolutely loved this book!!! Would wholeheartedly recommend to all of my friends, and I cannot wait to read more from this author.

I'm going to start by saying that I absolutely love this cover. This probably would not have hit my radar otherwise. I also really enjoyed the main character. Lona is an art school (or art major at a university) drop out. She gets the most boring and mundane job ever. She gets an apartment with people she barely knows. She gets a boyfriend. And nothing really happens. But that's sort of the point. Things are looking up by the end, but I'm not giving anything away. And Grandpa is, without a doubt, my favorite character. He sort of mirrors Lona in the fact that he's sort of lost and doesn't know what to do with himself either.

I related to Lona in so many more ways than I thought I would. Her aimlessness and indecisiveness at the beginning of the book felt frustrating but in a way that was familiar and unsettling. I've rarely read a book that describes how it feels to let down those around you in your early twenties. I love how open and fluid the book felt - as Lona explores her feelings, represses them, the story wanders as though following its protagonist's instincts. I really enjoyed this a lot and think a lot of young readers in their early twenties would too.

Such a great book! New adult fiction at its best. I loved everything about Lona - her looks, her art, her relationships, her feelings. I felt for and with her. The book is such a perfect portrait. It is a different book, the style and its characters are unique. The feelings are not. I really connected with Lona. I loved the little side comments on society. I cannot praise this book enough, it was just so entertaining. The relationship to her grandpa is another point that made me like this book. Lona wants to help but does not have this kind of relationship to him at first. I liked how she did what she could.

Nevertheless I did not like the end. It was way too fast, way too senseless. I'm sorry I did not get what the author wanted to express with this end, but I wanted more for Lona. A clear ending, some stability for her. But I guess that is what makes it even more special..

"She likes to agonise over particular words and ensure that she is making herself clear."

"he looks phenomenally undateable. Hair short and blunt cut along his forehad, small wire-framed glasses with one broken arm, David Tennant peering out through the door of the Tardis on his t-shirt. Lona's loins are instanly ablaze."

This story follows Lona as she tries to work out life post dropping out of college. Georgina Young has created a relatable character in Lona but she can be quite frustrating, much like a real person, as she is stuck in indecision for much of the book. In particular I enjoyed the relationship with her Grandpa as this felt real and nuanced to me.
Would recommend to readers looking for something similar to Normal People as its meandering but with a younger protagonist.