Reviews with content warning for Grief - The Last Word

I refuse to hide this extremely spoilery review for this very important reason: The dog survives! The book will spend an almost cruel amount of time trying to convince you otherwise, though, so be warned.

More spoilers from here on out, as I bravely dare to rate and review a thriller about a murderous writer going after the bored, grieving woman who roasted his book on Amazon. I too am bored and grieving, but this is Goodreads, and I promise not to be too mean.

Anyway.

I am once again absolutely begging thriller writers to please, for the love of God, stop writing villains with mental illness. It is not the fun plot device you think it is! I've known and cared for two people who have Howard's diagnosis, and it's not a goddamn punch line. People with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it. Too, Howard's diagnosis was a red herring. It added nothing to his character except to perpetuate a bunch of gross stereotypes.

That aside, I enjoyed a lot of things about this book. It was entertaining, creepy, full of twists, and the aforementioned (alive!) dog should have been the narrator. I also spent a ton of time rolling my eyes, sending screenshots to my best friend demanding to know how there could be so many hours left in the audiobook by the fifth time I thought it surely had to be drawing to a close, and wondering how many more times Howard was going to bisect something.

This is just a PSA to all white ladies: If you smell synthetic butter around your remote rental house and think a shadowy figure is watching you sleep, do not pass go, do not collect whatever the fuck, do not CONTINUE BLITHELY LIVING IN THE HOUSE — just leave. Also, don't play Hangman with random old men who have telescopes. Also also, how did this genius astrophysicist warrior woman not know what Hangman was?!

A BIG TW BELOW:

tw tw tw tw infant loss!!!

Idk why I keep picking up books that have surprise infant loss plotlines, but lol, I keep finding them. The detail was particularly brutal, and even though I knew it was coming, I sobbed for the last hour of this book.

Lots of other stuff to say about the plot and characters and Emma's interesting range of choices, but I've truly gone on long enough and I'm still not sure how I want to rate it. Twoish stars because...*gestures broadly*

Taylor Adams, if you're reading this, please don't murder me with a katana.

Content Warnings

carissa230's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Emma is living in isolation. The only company she has is her dog and a neighbor she plays hangman with through their windows with binoculars. When the neighbor suggests she read a book, she is shocked by how much she dislikes it. She puts up a 1-star review and the author immediately responds. When she starts feeling someone in the room with her while she sleeps and thinks there is someone outside she wonders if she pushed the author too far.

This was so fast-paced. I read this book in 1 day! It's been a while since I just took in a whole book in a day. The only reason it's not a 5-star for me is I saw one of the plot twists coming and I think it was supposed to be a shocking one.

Content Warnings

mflynn8908's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

4.0

The main character irritated me right from the start. She seemed rude, annoying and overall just mean however, once you learn her back story you understand why.
I did guess what was going to happen about 50% into the story but the author had some twists towards the end that made me second guess if I was correct or not so it did keep me invested in reading the story.
This is the second book I’ve read from this author so far and I can say that I actually enjoyed this one much more than I enjoyed no exit.

Content Warnings

ohhthehorrors's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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

5.0

Content Warnings

minimicropup's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad 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

Determined, calamitous, suspenseful

We are following our MC house-sitting someone's vacation house for the winter and another person who has been watching our MC and scheming. Ominous events happen over the course of the MCs stay catalyzed by their one-star review of a self-published horror/thriller book.

Set in winter along an isolated stretch of coast in Washington, USA

🔔 Somehow the narration on the audio wasn't working for me. I think it just killed the suspense / darkness. The narrator wasn't bad, just maybe not a book that was good on audio for me personally.

🙃 Oops:
No rating because this genre / plot just isn't for me (not b/c I'm scared to rate this, I swear 😉). I knew the genre and plot going in, so I wasn't mislead, I just had a serious case of FOMO when this was released. It's heavy on the action/adventure fight-for-your life plot so I had to skim a bit as I usually do for this genre, and I can't tell if it's because some scenes are too drawn out or because I always lose interest too quickly. The later part of the plot made me feel exhausted, but it wasn't OTT or poorly done, just taxing for me! I loved the tongue-in-cheek humour sprinkled throughout, meaningful commentary on the impact of book reviews and thriller/suspense/horror tropes, and creative narrative POVs.

Mood Reading Match Up: