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siobhan_shamlian's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.0
smsienk's review against another edition
4.0
This was a beautiful story about family, love, the search for meaning, and the many ways to find all of these things. I really enjoyed the characters, but the plot left something missing for me. I felt like it should be leading up to a Moment or Message and instead it was just over. I also found little to redeem in most of the male characters - they felt flat and that weakened what seemed to me to be the basis of the entire plot. It felt like it could have been more and fell just short.
romanthiccreader's review against another edition
5.0
jenniferesque's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
hwilczewski's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.0
lavieboheme930's review against another edition
1.0
The Last Romantics refers to the blog that main character writes. When I picked up this book, that wasn't what I expected. I thought it was going to be something about the last romantic people in the world. But when I saw that it was based on her blog, I was intrigued. What was her blog going to be about? Was this book going to read like Fiona's blog? In short...no. The book rarely had anything to do with her blog that I don't even know how Conklin chose this to be a title.
There's nothing about the cover to this book that gives the reader any idea of what the book is going to be about. Unless, it's supposed to resemble the blog Fiona, the make character, writes, then I don't know what it means. But it definitely doesn't scream The Last Romantics to me.
Conklin's plot was interesting at first and I wanted to like this book. But the more I read, the harder it got to even get through the book. Had Conklin focused more on Fiona's blog, then this might have been better. Not one character was likable or real. Renee thought she could control the sisters, Caroline relied too much on her husband and on finding a man, Joe was more interested in drugs and partying and Fiona used men for her blog. And their mother, an important role though seemed to not be a major one, it was hard to like any of them. Conklin wrote them in such a way that there was no good qualities in them.
Conklin's style of writing was hard to get through because of the time flow. It starts in 2079, why that year? I wish she had given us a reason why she chose that and not say, 2080. Then it went back to when the family was kids. Then quickly it's to them at an older age and then back to 2079 briefly and then back to the past. It was very hard to understand who was talking at times and I also feel Conklin made the plot of Joe going to Florida to just add more story. What happened in those chapters could've easily flowed with him living in New York.
There was nothing I enjoyed in this book, not even the parts with the family in New York City. As someone who lives in NYC, normally I love when a book takes place there, but not this one. I can't find anyone I would recommend this to.
sandi55's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
numbuh12's review against another edition
lovelykd's review against another edition
3.0
Fiona Skinner is a famous poet--world renowned for her brilliant poetry and her Last Romantics series--but the history behind one particular poem becomes the basis for Fiona's story.
The book opens with Fiona making a rare public speaking appearance--being attended by a number of her most devoted fans.
One such fan--a young woman named after a character in one of Fiona's most famous poems-- wants to know the origin of her namesake, Luna.
Specifically, is she real or not?
Fiona isn't sure she wants to divulge the answer--after so many years of dodging and demurring on the origin of the girl Luna--but something about the young woman mesmerizes Fiona; she suddenly wants to tell the story. The whole story.
As such, she decides to answer the question by beginning at the beginning: the death of her father and its effect on her family.
What follows is a sprawling narrative which not only speaks of Fiona's rise to fame, but of her brother Joe's struggles as he tried to reconcile being "the man of the house" without actually understanding what that meant; how her sister Caroline struggled to find favor with a mother who no longer valued wife and motherhood as a construct worthy of consideration; or how eldest sister Renee fought to figure out how to be the "mother" in a home where their actual mother checked out during the most pivotal time in each of their lives: the loss of their breadwinner father.
Each of the Skinner siblings navigate the sudden and total absence of their mother's involvement--a time they each come to reference as "The Pause"-- in ways that eventually shape the people they become.
Siblings who, for better or worse, love each other but who also feel unmoored from the lives they've seemingly only chosen because they didn't have a choice.
The story is riveting but the ways it shifts, reverses course, then doubles-back on itself was confusing, at times.
The narratives blended into each other--at one moment the focus was Fiona, then suddenly it'd shift to Joe or Caroline or Renee--and within that would be tangential stories that either jumped ahead a decade, or went back a year or two.
That made the timeline difficult to decipher at certain points--and was particularly challenging on audio--but once you understood the method behind the perceived madness, it wasn't difficult to keep up with what was happening where and when.
Overall, the story moved at a pace that was acceptable--given its tangential nature--and Conklin did a great job of finding ways to connect the dots, between the past and present, without straying so far as to have the reader lose interest or find themselves scurrying to find whatever thread they lost.
My only complaint is there wasn't enough time devoted to solving the mystery of "Luna".
After being so deliberate in telling the story, and getting the reader to the point that mattered most, the story ends with too many unanswered questions.
However, to Conklin's credit, given the way the story progressed and unfurled, the end made sense. I just would've liked a bit more clarity.
In the end, I enjoyed the book.
Thank you to Edelweiss+ for the Advanced EGalley of this work. Opinion is my own.