Take a photo of a barcode or cover
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Suicide
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Determined, calamitous, suspenseful
We are following our MC house-sitting someone's vacation house for the winter and another person who has been watching our MC and scheming. Ominous events happen over the course of the MCs stay catalyzed by their one-star review of a self-published horror/thriller book.
- Set in winter along an isolated stretch of coast in Washington, USA
🔔 Somehow the narration on the audio wasn't working for me. I think it just killed the suspense / darkness. The narrator wasn't bad, just maybe not a book that was good on audio for me personally.
🙃 Oops:
No rating because this genre / plot just isn't for me (not b/c I'm scared to rate this, I swear 😉). I knew the genre and plot going in, so I wasn't mislead, I just had a serious case of FOMO when this was released. It's heavy on the action/adventure fight-for-your life plot so I had to skim a bit as I usually do for this genre, and I can't tell if it's because some scenes are too drawn out or because I always lose interest too quickly. The later part of the plot made me feel exhausted, but it wasn't OTT or poorly done, just taxing for me! I loved the tongue-in-cheek humour sprinkled throughout, meaningful commentary on the impact of book reviews and thriller/suspense/horror tropes, and creative narrative POVs.
No rating because this genre / plot just isn't for me (not b/c I'm scared to rate this, I swear 😉). I knew the genre and plot going in, so I wasn't mislead, I just had a serious case of FOMO when this was released. It's heavy on the action/adventure fight-for-your life plot so I had to skim a bit as I usually do for this genre, and I can't tell if it's because some scenes are too drawn out or because I always lose interest too quickly. The later part of the plot made me feel exhausted, but it wasn't OTT or poorly done, just taxing for me! I loved the tongue-in-cheek humour sprinkled throughout, meaningful commentary on the impact of book reviews and thriller/suspense/horror tropes, and creative narrative POVs.
Mood Reading Match Up:
- Home invasion fight-for-your-life survival trope
- Tragedy guiding character development
- Isolated locked-ish room suspense thriller
- Action-adventure fight/hide/flee scenes
Content Heads-Up: Home invasion and stalking. Death of a child. Car accident. [No pet deaths].
Format: Scribd Audio and Kindle
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Violence, Grief, Murder
Moderate: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit
Minor: Animal cruelty
Animal cruelty is on page involving a dog, but for peace of mind it is via close calls, without gratuitous physical violence the dog lives after consuming food contaminated with fatal objects .
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Stalking, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Murder
Moderate: Infertility
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gore, Infertility, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Stalking, Car accident, Suicide attempt, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Oh...my....what!?!?!?!?! Bravo to Taylor Adams for doing it again!! Kept me intrigued from page 1 right through the end. I love the way this book is written both in the present tense as well as through the story of the book being written. It was a first for me to read in this style and I really enjoyed it! Of course leave it to Taylor Adams to keep me guessing until the end. Every single time I'd think I figured it out and knew what was happening I'd turn the page and get serious whiplash because the twists just do not stop coming.
Emma Carpenter already has enough going on in her life and she does what all of us on here do everyday-writes a simple, albeit a bit harsh, book review for a book she just finished with no idea what it would set in motion. She is a character you feel for throughout the whole book as you are supposed to, watching her struggle and overcome her struggles to put up the fight of her life is powerful, but will it be enough? Do we understand if it's not?
Only Taylor Adams can pull empathy out of me for the "bad guy." I swear this to be true, because usually I'm like "nope, I don't care you're bad and that's all there is." But somehow I found myself FEELING BAD for the bad guy. Not for what he gets, as all bad guys deserve exactly what happens to them in the end, but because of what leads him to being bad. Do our life circumstances make us evil or are some people just born evil? I don't even know, all I know is it's hard not to feel at least a little bit bad for the "bad guy" here.
As a fellow book loving recluse myself I'll definitely take pause before I post book reviews from now on!
Emma Carpenter already has enough going on in her life and she does what all of us on here do everyday-writes a simple, albeit a bit harsh, book review for a book she just finished with no idea what it would set in motion. She is a character you feel for throughout the whole book as you are supposed to, watching her struggle and overcome her struggles to put up the fight of her life is powerful, but will it be enough? Do we understand if it's not?
Only Taylor Adams can pull empathy out of me for the "bad guy." I swear this to be true, because usually I'm like "nope, I don't care you're bad and that's all there is." But somehow I found myself FEELING BAD for the bad guy. Not for what he gets, as all bad guys deserve exactly what happens to them in the end, but because of what leads him to being bad. Do our life circumstances make us evil or are some people just born evil? I don't even know, all I know is it's hard not to feel at least a little bit bad for the "bad guy" here.
As a fellow book loving recluse myself I'll definitely take pause before I post book reviews from now on!
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal cruelty, Child death
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Emma is house-sitting at Strand Beach, Washington. It's an isolated place with mostly currently empty vacation homes, & there's only Emma & her dog, Laika, plus nearest neighbour, Deek, an old man who plays Hangman with Emma via telescope. Emma spends most of her days reading ebooks & when she reads a poorly written horror novel by H.G. Kane, she thinks nothing of firing off a 1-star review. When she receives a reply from the author asking her to remove the review, Emma is annoyed & refuses, & over a couple more exchanges this explodes into direct threats from the author.
Then odd occurrences start to happen including the feeling someone is inside the house watching her. Emma doesn't really take things seriously until the homeowner messages her saying that an intruder has been captured outside the house on the motion cameras. Is this a coincidence or has the author tracked her down?
I'm a bit mixed in my views about this. It is well-written, pacy, & there are lots of twists & turns (although I guessed the main twist, some of others I definitely did not see coming which is always a good thing). Did I actually enjoy reading it though? Not sure. I will reiterate in the TWs but let me tell you here that the dog survives. I saw this in some reviews before deciding to read it as I'm always cautious with thriller books with pets in, but that's not to say poor Laika doesn't go through some horror, but ultimately she's okay. Me - not so much as I could have happily gone on avoiding knowing about the fate of real-life namesake Laika who was sent into space, for the rest of my natural life. I have deliberately avoided ever Googling anything about this so, yeah, thanks for that I guess. Verdict: well-written, fast-paced with lots of twists & turns but the couple of animal-related bits were difficult to read for me.
TWs: violence, death, stalking, animal cruelty (fortunately the dog survives), animal death (you read about the real-life Laika who didn't).
My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC. I am voluntarily giving an honest review.
Then odd occurrences start to happen including the feeling someone is inside the house watching her. Emma doesn't really take things seriously until the homeowner messages her saying that an intruder has been captured outside the house on the motion cameras. Is this a coincidence or has the author tracked her down?
I'm a bit mixed in my views about this. It is well-written, pacy, & there are lots of twists & turns (although I guessed the main twist, some of others I definitely did not see coming which is always a good thing). Did I actually enjoy reading it though? Not sure. I will reiterate in the TWs but let me tell you here that the dog survives. I saw this in some reviews before deciding to read it as I'm always cautious with thriller books with pets in, but that's not to say poor Laika doesn't go through some horror, but ultimately she's okay. Me - not so much as I could have happily gone on avoiding knowing about the fate of real-life namesake Laika who was sent into space, for the rest of my natural life. I have deliberately avoided ever Googling anything about this so, yeah, thanks for that I guess. Verdict: well-written, fast-paced with lots of twists & turns but the couple of animal-related bits were difficult to read for me.
TWs: violence, death, stalking, animal cruelty (fortunately the dog survives), animal death (you read about the real-life Laika who didn't).
My thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, for the opportunity to read an ARC. I am voluntarily giving an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Violence, Stalking
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death
adventurous
funny
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Gore, Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, Vomit, Grief, Car accident
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Death, Gun violence, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Grief, Stalking, Murder, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death, Car accident, Death of parent
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Taylor Adams has pretty much guaranteed himself all-positive reviews for his latest book. No one-star ratings here!
The Last Word is a genuinely gripping thriller. Like, whip-through-the-pages good.
You've got an off-kilter author of some crappy horror novels, a reader giving a one-star review, a secluded beach house and some sneaky secrets.
The Last Word is right back to the fantastic cinema-ready thriller Taylor Adams established in No Exit. There's some awesome twisty creepiness here!
Unplug that landline and sharpen your katana - recommended!
The Last Word is a genuinely gripping thriller. Like, whip-through-the-pages good.
You've got an off-kilter author of some crappy horror novels, a reader giving a one-star review, a secluded beach house and some sneaky secrets.
The Last Word is right back to the fantastic cinema-ready thriller Taylor Adams established in No Exit. There's some awesome twisty creepiness here!
Unplug that landline and sharpen your katana - recommended!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child death, Gun violence, Infertility, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Car accident, Murder, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail