Reviews with content warning for Medical content - The Last Murder at the End of the World

It kind of has become a tradition to buddy read Stuart Turton's books with Nicki, so of course we ended up doing the same with his newest title The Last Murder At The End Of The World. One of the things I love about his writing is just how completely different and unique each of his books is, and you never know what genre or story you are going to get. It's true that I don't exactly read a lot of dystopian stories, but I'm game for just about anything as long as Stuart Turton writes it. And I have to say that it turned out to be yet another very successful buddy read! The Last Murder At The End Of The World uses a multiple POV structure and there are a LOT of different characters to keep apart. A list of names is provided in the beginning, which definitely helped... But it still slowed down the pace a little in the beginning, especially since most are not the easiest names to remember. The dystopian world itself is intriguing, and I loved how you only slowly started to learn more about what was REALLY going on. This isn't just a murder mystery or a race against the clock, as it also shows you both sides of humanity and gives you plenty of puzzles to tackle along the way. The story started out slower than expected and this is not my favorite Stuart Turton, but especially the second half was brilliant. It was fun going back and forth with Nicki talking about and processing yet another shocking reveal... And of course there was also the obligatory baking involved. I'm keeping this review short as it's hard to properly talk about the plot without spoiling certain things... The Last Murder At The End Of The World is one of those books where it's best to go in blind. I can say that I never did guess the full truth about it all though! It's without doubt a very satisfying read, and I will already be looking forward to his next book (supposedly a more contemporary thriller; can't wait!).

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aseel_reads's review

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-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

3.75

this was super easy to read and i was hooked very quickly from the start. i pretty much had no real thoughts as to who could be the killer, we weren't given enough information to try and solve it ourselves. it was pretty obvious who it wasn't but the reason relatively well-developed and logical.

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jazhandz's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I enjoyed Evelyn Hardcastle a lot, and D&DW a fair amount, so I was really excited to dig into this. It was very twisty and complicated in the way Turton’s books always are, but I loved the process of entangling what the high concept was this time, and I blazed through reading it. A fascinating mystery and if you’ll excuse me I need to go reread Evelyn Hardcastle to chase this emotional high again.

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shelfofunread's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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912jae's review against another edition

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inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

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skylarkblue1's review

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.75

Thank you Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Why are book synopsis' going the way of movie trailers where they seem to aim to reveal way too much about the thing it's trying to introduce/describe? I loved seven deaths of Evelyn hardcastle so I requested this book without reading the full description, just knowing it was a dystopian sci fi, and honestly that was a really good choice. I read the full description when I got near the end and was so shocked to just see how much got revealed in the description alone.

I honestly absolutely loved this book. Complex characters, fast paced story and intricate plot threads that slowly weave together. So many questions but answers are given at a good pace and I believe most if not all the questions did get an answer by the end - I can't think of anything major right now at least!

I loved the characters so much. They're all so complex and unique with so many goals and motives and ideas, it was just so delightful to read about these characters! I normally struggle quite a lot with remembering who was who, who was what name, etc but I actually never had that problem once throughout this whole book despite there being actually quite a lot of characters because of how unique to each other they were.

The plot was just so incredibly thick with mystery and questions, but it manages to handle all of that incredibly well. The world gets established in good time while still leaving a ton of mystery to drip through the rest of the book. The questions felt believable, so did the whole premise honestly - despite how apocalyptic sci-fi it is. The prologue sucked me in instantly and really set up the story perfectly.

I think the only negative about this is the same negative I had with 7 deaths - the ending. It's miles better than how 7 deaths handled it's ending imo but it's still very... I'm not even sure how to explain it. It feels a bit rushed, incredibly lore dumpy and it's just constant explanation monologues with a solution that feels a teeny bit underwhelming in my opinion. It is an answer that fits and makes sense, and the additional information that plays out during the ending is quite nice so it's better than 7 deaths in that regard. It's just.. not sure about it honestly. But also like 7 deaths, it really didn't change my overall opinion of the book that much because the rest of the book is just that good.

Suprisingly, there's also queer representation in this. A very nice sapphic relationship and in all honesty I think it was done very nicely. It's not something that's pointed out, it's just a normalised relationship and treated within the book as any other relationship. It is really nice when books have that. It's not a book that's heavy in romance though, if you dislike romance you'll be fine with it. There's people missing loved ones, relationships that get torn apart - so there's certainly conversations about relationships - but not really much romance at all.

I would strongly recommend this book if you enjoy mysteries. Absolutely perfect for a book club as well!

This probably means I should read Stuart's first book now as I've enjoyed everything else from him haha!!

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