Reviews tagging 'Panic attacks/disorders'

Last One at the Party by Bethany Clift

13 reviews

stabilesero's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Two whole weeks since everyone died and I had only made the most cursory attempts to find any other survivors..... I had watched porn instead.

I freaking loved this. It was so refreshing to have a post-apocalypse book with a British sense of humour. There were so many points that were my favourite but I don't want to give anything away. You may find the MC a little self-indulgent and self-pitying. I honestly hated her for a short while, but let's be honest, we're not all going to be the best apocalypse survivors. This was a treat. 

Also, there's a dog. Need I say any more?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Body horror, Pandemic/Epidemic, Pregnancy, Death, and Drug use

Moderate: Vomit, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Panic attacks/disorders, Grief, Alcohol, Child death, Death of parent, Excrement, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Miscarriage and Xenophobia

fictionalsarah's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Drug use, Alcohol, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, Blood, Death, Pregnancy, Addiction, Gore, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Vomit, Excrement, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Infertility, Infidelity, and Miscarriage

aaron5830's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

Very interesting book depicting a scenario which I’ve always wondered what it would be like to face.

The main character is a really unlikeable person. Towards the end we finally see some positive development in her.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infertility, Addiction, Drug use, Gore, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, and Pandemic/Epidemic

findingthefantasticstory's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I have just finished the audiobook and I loved it.

I think this is a definite book to listen to. To story is told through recordingd mad by the main character. The narrator brings so much more emotion to the book. There's scenes where you really feel all the emotions and you are there with the main character hoping she get through everything. This makes the listening to the audiobook very emotional, there were times where I wanted to cry on the bus.

I would really recommend this to anyone who wants a different take on a distopian.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Death, Death of parent, and Drug abuse

If you are a fan of dogs be careful, I got very emotional.

flatreads's review against another edition

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Animal death, Body horror, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Minor: Child death

sopranoreader's review against another edition

adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Death of parent, Drug use, Grief, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Drug abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

Moderate: Animal death, Medical content, Murder, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Child death, Alcohol, Excrement, and Miscarriage

chia_ie's review against another edition

dark funny reflective fast-paced

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

5.0

this book was amazing. i loved it so so much. HOWEVER some parts were definitely hard to read, and i don’t know if i would’ve picked this book up if i was aware of the amount of gore in it.

there are some really distressing (and detailed) scenes including both animals and humans. the story being set in 2023 is also anxiety inducing, as we are still living through a pandemic. the idea of another one so soon, and it being more severe, is scary. 

i really enjoyed the main character. she felt very human. some people pointed out some inconsistencies in her character and the plot itself, but honestly if i ever did question anything, it was never significant enough to spoil the book for me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Alcoholism, Blood, Vomit, Addiction, Death of parent, Suicide, Drug abuse, Drug use, Body horror, Gore, Animal death, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Medical content, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Confinement, Murder, Sexual content, Pregnancy, and Infidelity

Minor: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Gun violence, Car accident, and Infertility

luelle_'s review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.0

That ending just infuriated me. I have no other words at this time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Death, Grief, Pregnancy, Panic attacks/disorders, and Miscarriage

Moderate: Child death, Drug use, Vomit, Terminal illness, Suicide, Infertility, and Excrement

sabrielsbell's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

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

1.0

The premise of this book seemed right up my alley.  I love a good dystopian/survival story.  However, I just could not get into this book and DNFd at 65%. I struggled with 3 main components.  The first is the main character who is incredibly unlikable.  She has no survival skills, treats animal pretty poorly, and is all around unrelatable even with her struggles with anxiety and depression.  Since everyone is presumably dead, she is the only point of view you get and the only character you really spend time with aside from her best friend and her husband who are also both meh.  Secondly, there is really nothing to the plot.  Its a mix of the main character driving, drinking, and thinking about her past life with a few big moments thrown in. At the beginning it is clear that the main character is not capable of surviving on her own and I figured we'd spend the book watching her learn the hard way.  There are very few moments like that. Instead she keeps randomly finding food, water, and shelter with little trouble and most of the book is her staying in hotels and drinking or doing mundane life things.....just alone. Lastly, I struggled with the lack of research and logic.  At one point she says she sees a car every hundred miles or so (England is not that many hundred miles long anyway?) and then she says she went from London to like NorthHampton which is only 62 miles away. She also talks about snow being up to her thighs and then the next day it has completely melted and the grass is green.  It just doesn't make sense.  There seemed to be no research done into how bodies decompose or how long electricity would last without people.  All in all it was a very frustrating book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Vomit

clacksee's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Last One at the Party presents the reader with a story that's essentially a hyperbole of our current reality. A pandemic sweeps the world unchecked by attempts to constrain it. But instead of leaving most people merely inconvenienced, 6DM kills everyone in its path. Almost everyone.

Spoiler

fewer than one in a million

survive it.

Our nameless heroine is pretty much the worst possible person to survive something like this. She's selfish, tedious, insipid. She wilfully condemns various helpless animals to death, acknowledging their desperation and then moving on. Not since Heathcliff and Catherine have I come across main characters I hated so intensely.

As we get to know her, we see she's been battling severe depression and crippling anxiety for years even before the pandemic. Add PTSD after the fact and, well, she doesn't cope well. But she definitely shows emotional growth over the course of the book – it just takes her a long, long, loooooong time to get there.

It reminded me a lot of Anne Corlett's The Space Between the Stars.

To be honest, I'm not certain whether I actually liked this book. For a solid 90% of it, I despised the main character. But I'll tell you what: I could not put it down. And I've got such a serious book hangover from it, that I haven't been able to get into another book since.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, Mental illness, Infidelity, and Grief