Reviews - Last Days | The StoryGraph

908 reviews for:

Last Days

Adam L.G. Nevill

3.58 AVERAGE

palomahill's review against another edition

2.25

dark mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Deeply icky book. Hella creepy, though, it absolutely accomplished that goal very well. It felt like the author was disgusted by every aspect of it except the Antwerp sequence, which ended up being the only likable bit. There's not a single sympathetic character, but the POV character is so awful that you're 200 pages in and sincerely hoping he'll just GET EATEN ALREADY and then there'll be a nice explanatory wrap up but no, 300 more pages to go. The historical tie ins and explanations were nice enough but the ending action sequence was mind numbingly tedious.

sethfromearth's review against another edition

3.25

dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

satanicpuppy's review against another edition

4.0

This was the second Nevill book I read after The Ritual...I liked the first half of that one quite a lot, but the second half left me cold.

For this one, I picked up a sample, read the first chapter or so, and then shelved it for like six months. It didn't seem like it was going to go anywhere I was interested in going.

I was wrong.

A lot of people, in reviews, call Nevill verbose. His books should be tighter, shorter, more concise.

I liked the slow burn in this one. I liked all the slow exposition, coupled with the uncanny. I liked the asides with weird tangential characters, I felt it all built toward the ultimate end, and while, sure, there were parts I could cut, I don't think cutting them would really benefit the story.

Little slow in the start, but I didn't find it slow at all once it got going. The exposition had that lovely sort of horror to it...You knew what they were going to say, you knew what they'd experienced, but it was important that said it, and all the more horrifying when they did.

I found it clean and satisfying. Ending was a little pat, some bits in the middle weren't what they could have been, but there were bits that were really imaginative and inspired. I highly recommend.

princessofstories's review against another edition

2.5

dark medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

very evocative imagery, but the plot falls apart by the end and the main characters are unpleasant. patina of sexism undergirding the writing; some very cool scenes but overall didn't gel

mothandlantern's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

jrayers97's review

3.5

Some really good scares but hampered by a long drawn out narrative. The book is purposed around a documentary crew investigating a cult whose legacy ends in a mass murder. This documentary crew is set up to interview key witnesses and detail the life of this cult. And yet the making of the documentary concludes at the 58% mark. The rest of the novel is a rather drawn out unsatisfying conclusion that made me wish Nevill tightened up the narrative. There is a 5 star 300 page book somewhere in here. Still though, the scene in England of the crew being hunted was genuinely one of the scariest scenes I’ve read. The France farm was also quite well done.

skull_krusher's review against another edition

3.0

At the time of finishing this book, this is probably the scariest book that I've read. It did a very good job of making my skin crawl and getting my heart rate up several times. I really enjoyed his aspect of it. Most of the ride throughout the book is quite enjoyable and it was very much a page turner. I felt very worried for the protagonist the whole time and wanted to keep reading to find out what happens to him.

So why only 3 stars? Well, I found the ending very unsatisfying. It felt like quite a let down after all the anticipation building up. The writing also didn't quite work for me at times, especially towards the end of the book. Some of the descriptions just felt a little overblown and too wordy and made it more difficult for me to really picture what was happening. Maybe this is my own issue and partly due to having to look up some words in some parts, but this did detract from the book for me.