Reviews with content warning for Stalking - The Last Word

This one, to me, was like watching one of those horror movies that you are waiting for all the bad things to happen to someone in slow motion.

The plot idea seems based on the Goodreads author who threatened someone and showed up on her door for giving her a bad review. This book takes it a step further with murder. There are some twists, but I wasn’t surprised in the end, who it was, but I thought it was a unique idea.

The audiobook with dual narrators (Emma and the killer) was fantastic.

“That night Emma’s killer wouldn’t be limited by his background or his skill set, with a little prep time, he could be whatever he wished to be, a Swiss Army knife, a shapeshifter, the sum of the internet’s deepest darkest knowledge: how to pick a lock, how to tie a clove hitch, how to slice a carotid artery, how to pass a police polygraph test, this was his greatest power.” Ch 9

“H G Kane has been toying with her, hinting in his own devilish way, that he is closer than she realizes, that he commands an omniscient power, that she’s trapped in his story, where not even a sapsucker falls without his knowing.” Ch 10

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

2.0

As I was scrolling past all the 1 star reviews, I thought to myself I only have 2 stars to give… I really enjoyed the opening, it was a page turner until the middle completely fizzling out and draaaged, then the author dragged the ending even more.

Emma is house sitting a remote beach house with its own creaky secrets but after writing a 1 star review and an odd exchange with the author, she’s paranoid of being watched. Isolating herself from events of the past year, throughout the book, a mystery unfolds slowly of what happened. While she’s being chased around the house by a killer.

The book read a bit like a movie script, at one point I described it as a low budget scary movie, it has the final girl trope, twisty but ultimately predictable. The telescope Hangman 🔭 and flashbacks to Emma’s history would play nicely on the screen. Some of the themes were quite sad and downright disturbing - yes, the dog Laika survives but it was really really really unnecessary to include all those almost killed parts. The author does mention the brutal story of the original Laika, which if you don’t already know about, I’m sorry. On top of few other triggers, which may be spoilery, so please check at your own risk.

Soooo the two ⭐️⭐️ stars are for the first part of the book 🤌🏼 and the one passage I really liked 🪐✨

“I don’t believe in God. But sometimes when I look out at the universe, I want to. There’s so much wonder out there. Planets made entirely of diamonds or ice, worlds where it rains molten glass whipped into knives by hurricane-force winds. Deep, dark places where the laws of physics as we understand them simply cease to be. Swirls of red and violet nebulae hundreds of light-years across. A human lifetime, traveling at the speed of light, couldn’t even cross a tiny fraction. She smiled. I guess I’m in love with the beauty and terror of it.” 💛

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