Reviews with content warning for Animal cruelty - The Last Word

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Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

The Last Word by Taylor Adams

163 reviews

lexithelion's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This book is incredible, I loved it. It was my first introduction to this author and I picked up this book on a whim before I went on vacation. It took me a very short time to finish because it was very hard to put down; I kept wanting to know what happened next. The author is very good at writing compelling characters and created a beautiful plot line. At one point it does get a little frustrating because people keep “dying” but keep coming back, and in my opinion it happens way too much and at one point I stopped believing that anyone was actually dead. But otherwise I will pick up more books from this author!

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judassilver's review against another edition

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dark funny inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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

4.25

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jess_fv's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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erinmichele_reads's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective tense

3.0

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readwithmedani's review against another edition

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I chose to DNF this book around the halfway point because of the dog's involvement. She is such a sweet dog, and the author includes the sweet creature's thoughts in italics which is very endearing. However, the "bad guy" is actively trying to kill her, well mainly her human, but her too. This reasoning might seem ridiculous, or not a big deal to some, but it's just something I cannot read about and it's not negotiable. I understand that it is completely a personal preference and might be causing me to miss out on a great book/story, but it is what it is. Even just the thought of harm (let alone actual harm) to an animal, especially a pet, is not something that I can have in the books I read. I did flip to the end to find out that the dog ||while harmed, thankfully does not successfully get murdered by the crazy man.|| After the author told us about the real life story of Laika, the first dog sent to space (and a SUPER sad story at that - one I was glad I had not ever heard before, especially since it is true), I decided to DNF the book. With that being said, I will not mention the dog again, and I will write the rest of this review for the portion of the book that I read. This book has an awesome premise and was one of the very few books that gave me the creeps while reading it. I was surprised to see the author/killer show up so early and so obvious (like, literally knocks on her door) but alas I didn't keep going to see what happens. It might have been a great book/story, but, I don't plan on picking it back up again any time soon.

I did not choose a star rating since I chose to not finish the book.

Read for The Amazing Readathon Leg 7 Seoul: A Book with a Light Source on the Cover

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mj_86's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.25

Unfortunately I guessed 90% of the twists before they were revealed. Just okay for me.

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a_libraryghost's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious tense 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

3.0

I started this book wanting a twisty but easy to read thriller after being in a reading slump, and that’s exactly what I got. In some ways it exceeded my expectations, mostly it met them and in a couple ways I was disappointed.
As others have pointed out there are a lot of twists though despite this most of them are pretty predictable. There was one twist I was surprised it took so long to reveal because it seemed very obvious very quickly. Though I will say while I was right about almost everything, I was made to second guess my assumptions. The two major twists directly linked to Emma were the ones I didn’t see coming and definitely were the most compelling.

In fact, Emma in general was the best part of this story. So often when reading or watching horror you do not care whether the character lives or dies, or you might want them to die for being so stupid, but I was rooting for Emma (and Laika!) the whole time and she is really what kept me reading.

I had two big issues with the book. One was the invincibility of the characters like

Howard is hit by a van, has his hand struck by a hammer, and is stabbed in the chest with a katana…AND CAN STILL WALK?!

and the other is the laughably stereotypically the way the villain is depicted. Like the author pulled him straight from a reddit meme
Neckbeard? ✅
Fedora? ✅
Literally says “I guess nice guys do finish last”? ✅
A FUCKING KATANA?! ✅

I think Adams tried to subvert it a bit and give him some more depth but it when the nice guy line came I just had to laugh and it felt a bit like I was reading something straight on reddit.

I do agree the ending dragged on but I liked it and was pretty happy with the outcome.

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lexi_jade101's review against another edition

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mysterious sad medium-paced

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

3.0

Animal Cruelty involved. Good twists but some were not connected to the rest of the plot. Amazing premise.

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dmd95's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

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lmayfieldx's review against another edition

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mysterious 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

1.0

📖 third person

📖 dual pov

📖 reader fmc

📖 dog’s thoughts

📖 flashbacks

emma is house sitting at a beach house in washington. she has ample time to read & she’s enjoying it. she stumbles across a book that she didn’t enjoy. she left a 1 star rating & soon after began being tormented & harassed by someone. she quickly realizes it must be the author, because who else could it be? she has to do everything she can so that her and her dog, laika, can escape

—

is it ironic to give this book 1 star, when that was the forming point of the book? maybe. is my rating still a 1 star? absolutely

first & foremost - laika does not die. when things started happening to the dog, i googled to see if she would survive, bc if not it was going to be an immediate dnf. i wish i had still dnf’d though, bc this book was not it

this book was terrible and honestly i don’t understand all of the people rating it so high & raving about it. did we read the same thing?

this book is dual pov, but it may as well have been one pov. the fmc’s pov says something and then the mmc’s pov says the exact opposite & vice versa. it was him constantly believing he’s such a mastermind & so great, fast forward to the fmc’s pov talking about how much of an idiot he is (disclaimer - she was correct)

also the ending of the book is weird. it goes from chapter 38 to the acknowledgments to a statement from the strand beach pd to chapter 39 to the epilogue? was this just an audiobook error? possibly. was it annoying? yes bc if i hadn’t kept listening past the acknowledgments, i’d have missed part of it - which in reality, would i have been missing anything? no. but still, it’s the point

your tbrs are too long to waste time on foolish books. do yourself a favor & skip this one. i wish i had. the author owes me compensation for wasting time of my life on this

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