Reviews with content warning for Car accident - The Last House Guest

And with that, our Megan Miranda season comes to a close ... (for now, anyways)

B̷R̷I̷N̷G̷ ✨ 𝗕𝗢𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗪 ✨ B̷Y̷P̷A̷S̷S̷

1. The Only Survivors (2023)
2. The Perfect Stranger (2017)
3. All the Missing Girls (2016)
4. The Last House Guest (2019)
5. The Last to Vanish (2022)
6. Such a Quiet Place (2021)

Well, there you have it. 6 Megan Miranda books in 6 days. OOF.

(Even as I have them organized as I do, I would recommend any one of these if someone asked - but if you had interest in the plots of the ones towards the bottom, I would just advise you read those first so that they can just get better and better as you go!)

The Last House Guest just so happened to be my Last Megan Miranda book (for the time being) and I think it was a really nice one to go out on. I liked the way it kept going back and forth with the competing timelines, and I was genuinely shocked a number of times.

I love how the author manages to sneak in so many inconsequential details about things that are actually SUPER consequential and when those things come back around you find yourself going, "How did I not see that coming???" when in fact even if you had been looking she went about it in a way that made it easy to miss.

I believed in these characters, and in the story that she told. I believed in the motivations, I believed in the practicality of it, I believed in the plausibility of it. There were a couple of character relationships I would have liked to see a bit more backstory / depth / conclusion on, but when you look at the way the novel is set up I truly believe she closed out all the paths that were relevant to the main character in relation to her story & arc at this time, and ultimately I'm just gonna let it slide!

Content Warnings

minimicropup's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

One of the only things I liked about this book was that I found the Lit Society Podcast bc of it.

Narration: 👍
Narrator voice was good. Not monotonous and able to pick up on different characters w/o being overdone.

Atmosphere: 🤔
Pretty well described, but flat. You could imagine any place with water, a cliff, and some trees. The town is repetitively described as an entity to the point of being assigned human traits. Hard to locate myself and if I let my imagination run wild it’d be smashed randomly. Lots of me going ‘wait, they ran past A to get to B… isn’t B on the other side of the town in the opposite direction?’

POV: 🥴
-MC is a young adult with some trauma and grief in their recent past and a bit obsessive/naively intrusive with their friend’s family. They’re making questionable decisions due to the trauma and lack of experience
-The MCs experiences are recounted late summer at a party, and then a year later. Same characters (er, minus one) and setting so it gets SO confusing as the timelines jump around AND it isn’t chronological within each year. I was lost for which year we were in if I missed the chapter heading or took a break. Easily could have written most of this chronologically in 2 parts (year 1 and 2).

Reading Journey: 😵‍💫
Scenic road trip to a cottage weekend, turns into “omg wtf why are you taking us this route” arguments, turns into getting there late with everyone cranky and tired.

Growls and Howls: 🐺
Overall it was a good plot but the writing style and “villain”destroyed it. There were a lot of annoying world salads …kinda like “she took in the ocean breeze as a reminder of the town and it’s salty hold on those who crossed it’s path, like Sadie and so many of the memories she left behind”. The “divide” between townies and tourists was overly done trying to put the friendship between Avery and Sadie on Romeo and Juliet levels.

Show’n’tell: 🥴
Mostly show, but weirdly. Like bringing a crayon on bring-your-pet-to-school day (is that still a thing?)

Good match if you like:
-late summer vibes
-party mysteries
-naive characters lacking self awareness (I love MCs like this)
-rich people behaving badly
-corruption
-villain monologue (for me, this instantly transforms an entire novel into a poorly animated children’s cartoon)

Vibes: ☺️🤨🫤

Format: Audible and Library E-book via Libby

Content Warnings

katiejohns's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

Content Warnings

hazelgirl21's review against another edition

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mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

Content Warnings

katrinarose's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is one of the better mystery thriller books I’ve read recently, although it has its flaws. I thought the mystery was interesting, the writing engaging and the plot fast. The ending/reveal wasn’t crazy but I also didn’t predict it. There were a few likable characters but many were unlikable, and I wish the unlikable characters were given a bit more depth. I didn’t love that although we were in first person, Avery (the protagonist) kept revealing new things that she knew about what happened throughout the book. This style kind of annoys me because if it’s first person I believe we should know everything that’s going on in that person’s head. If there are secrets to be kept, stay in third person. That’s just my opinion though. It was a fun mystery with a great setting and atmosphere and it made me interested to try out some of the author’s other work.

Content Warnings

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