Alone in a Crowd: Young Adult Loneliness Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe loneliness in young adulthood, the kind that persists in shared houses, busy offices and full group chats. Writers came to it through moving for work or study, from Valencia to London and Chengdu to Sydney, working from home, night shifts, a first year at university, coming out and losing a hometown, leaving the Army, leaving a church, getting sober, a best friend moving abroad and a breakup that took all the friends. They include a young carer for a mother with multiple sclerosis, a profoundly deaf student at a hearing university, a wheelchair user after a car crash, a 23-year-old on his family's Nebraska farm, a long-haul trucker, a junior doctor, a new mother with no village and a father at twenty-one, writing from Toronto to Tromsø and Goa to Seoul. Some found that an autism diagnosis, help for more than shyness or treatment for depression explained part of it. What helped was usually small and regular: a boxing gym, singing with others, sport, a running partner after a layoff, a peer support evening, a mother's phone call at the same time each night. Not every story resolves: grief for a brother remains, lupus still cancels plans, and the last writer is still working on it and says so.

Who it's for

For young adults who feel alone in a crowded life, and for the parents, partners and friends who want to understand a loneliness that is often well hidden.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 251 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.