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3.25 AVERAGE
3.25 AVERAGE
lighthearted
medium-paced
funny
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Sara is stuck in middle management and is clearly under appreciated at her majority tech bro job. After a contemptuous pitch meeting, Sara decides that she’s had enough and takes her app, One Last Word, with her. Determined to get her app and new company off the ground, Sara applies for a mentorship program with the hope to secure funding. After celebrating hitting submit on her application, she and her sister drunkenly write letters to some of the most important people in her life in the app. How does the app work? Say what you need to get off your chest to get the last word and the app will send out the letters once you die. But of course, the app glitches and sends the letters over night. Now she has to clean up the mess her letters created while completing the mentoring program.
The premise of this book hooked me immediately, I mean, who doesn’t have a couple of people they’d like to get the last word with? Watching Sara, a reserved, heads down, corporate grinder, navigate not only her new career but reconcile the relationships she let get away was pretty entertaining. Sara comes to realize she may be a bit more at fault for the way her relationships have turned out. From her ex-best friend, to her unrequited crush she puts on a pedestal, and her complicated relationship with her parents she gets a much needed wake up call.
I enjoyed that Sara’s faults were not only acknowledged but lovingly confronted with the help of her closes support system; her sister and best friend Casey. There were times where the pacing moved a bit slower and it seemed like it was stuck in a never ending lecture about the patriarchy and rampant sexism in the tech industry.
Overall, it was a good quick read about self-discovery, confidence, and a hint of romance.
Thank you NetGalley & Avon Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
The premise of this book hooked me immediately, I mean, who doesn’t have a couple of people they’d like to get the last word with? Watching Sara, a reserved, heads down, corporate grinder, navigate not only her new career but reconcile the relationships she let get away was pretty entertaining. Sara comes to realize she may be a bit more at fault for the way her relationships have turned out. From her ex-best friend, to her unrequited crush she puts on a pedestal, and her complicated relationship with her parents she gets a much needed wake up call.
I enjoyed that Sara’s faults were not only acknowledged but lovingly confronted with the help of her closes support system; her sister and best friend Casey. There were times where the pacing moved a bit slower and it seemed like it was stuck in a never ending lecture about the patriarchy and rampant sexism in the tech industry.
Overall, it was a good quick read about self-discovery, confidence, and a hint of romance.
Thank you NetGalley & Avon Books for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
My hit-or-miss journey with Suzanne Park continues with her latest adult “romcom” One Last Word. As always, this is a promising book, but the promise gets a little lost in the weeds of trying to tackle too many concepts.
Sara is perhaps the best part of the book. She’s very sympathetic, dealing with the expectations of her rather demanding Korean parents, the sexism she deals with in the tech industry, and not to mention her shambles of a love life. And I really liked how initially the book set all that up with the letters, with each of them addressing her issues. And while I don’t feel the book fleshed out each of these subjects to the best degree, her character remained likable and easy to root for as she continued to navigate challenges throughout the book.
But I felt like both the tech stuff and even the family angle overwhelmed the book, to the point that it’s not necessarily a genre romance. There’s romantic elements in it, but I can’t say they’re particularly memorable. Harry is fine, but rather meh. There’s a fake dating subplot with her best friend which I actually thought seemed a lot more fun, and like a bit of a missed opportunity.
However, as disappointed as I am, I also can’t be too let down, as Suzanne Park’s books have been consistently WF-leaning…although I will say some of her romantic subplots are better than others. I’ll probably keep reading them, as I consistently enjoy her protagonists’ journeys, but just as with most of her work, definitely don’t go in expecting a more prominent romantic arc. But with that caveat in mind, I do recommend it to readers interested in contemporaries about Asian women in STEM and their professional and personal struggles.
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
lighthearted
medium-paced
This was so promising and had a strong start. I love the premise- a tech entrepreneur with an app idea that allows users to plan messages, “one last word,”that will go out after they die. I love the serendipity of her reconnecting with her high school crush who becomes her mentor. I liked the main and side characters. The dialogue and banter were fun.
But around the halfway point, unnecessary things started happening. And I think it was just too ambitious. There were multiple half baked plot points. If just a few were more fleshed out, this would have been great. But instead of paring them down, it’s like every interesting story idea Park thought of made it in the book. I enjoyed her writing but, unfortunately, I think the plot just got away from itself.
Ratings
Quality of Writing 4/5
Pacing 4/5
Plot Development 2/5
Character Development 3/5
Overall Enjoyability 3/5
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
This was a light romance about an Asian woman fighting for her place in the tech world.
I really appreciated seeing the challenges of being a woman in the bro-ey tech environment. The FMC was never afraid to stand up for herself, and it was great to see her say the things many of us wish we had in our own personal business experiences.
Outside of that, I found the book to be slow and a little boring. The whole premise of the book as discussed in the blurb, the app making a mistake and sending her postmortem messages while she was still alive , didn’t happen until nearly a quarter of the way through the book. Since I knew it was coming, I spent a lot of the beginning just waiting for the buildup to stop and the action to start.
There were also a lot of classic cliches built into the romance story, and I found the couple hard to root for. I’m not sure I really liked either of them individually, and was not invested in their success outside of the business.
I was provided a complimentary ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
This was an interesting bit of contemporary fiction with a romantic subplot. The main plot is genuinely stuff made of my nightmares, as Sara Chae (Korean American) is an app developer of a unique but intriguing app, One Last Word. Her app allows you to send your final words to people after you pass away. However, after another Sara Chae passes away, her last words are sent to her mother, a former best friend, and to her unrequited high school crush Harry. Meanwhile, she applies for a VC mentorship and lo and behold, Harry is her mentor! Like I said, the stuff of my nightmares!
Overall, I appreciated the representation of how femmes are treated in the dudebro tech world, the illustration of fraught family dynamics, and the coming-of-age story for Sara as she more confidently and bravely stepped into herself!
I think this would be a fun book club choice, or a nice lil beach read!
side note: In the epilogue, they decide to go to Hawaii and native Hawaiians have been asking folks to stop being tourists if Hawaii and using all of their resources, so please find somewhere else to vacation kthxbye!
This was an interesting bit of contemporary fiction with a romantic subplot. The main plot is genuinely stuff made of my nightmares, as Sara Chae (Korean American) is an app developer of a unique but intriguing app, One Last Word. Her app allows you to send your final words to people after you pass away. However, after another Sara Chae passes away, her last words are sent to her mother, a former best friend, and to her unrequited high school crush Harry. Meanwhile, she applies for a VC mentorship and lo and behold, Harry is her mentor! Like I said, the stuff of my nightmares!
Overall, I appreciated the representation of how femmes are treated in the dudebro tech world, the illustration of fraught family dynamics, and the coming-of-age story for Sara as she more confidently and bravely stepped into herself!
I think this would be a fun book club choice, or a nice lil beach read!
side note: In the epilogue, they decide to go to Hawaii and native Hawaiians have been asking folks to stop being tourists if Hawaii and using all of their resources, so please find somewhere else to vacation kthxbye!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism
Minor: Sexual content, Toxic relationship
"One Last Word" follows Sara Chae, an aspiring app developer who is fed up with the sexist, racist men in her company and is ready to take the reins of her own destiny.
Sara Chae has created an app entitled One Last Word, which allows the user to send messages to anyone in their life after they are deceased. She meant for it to act as a means to get the things that one was never able to say during their lifetime off their chest so that they can rest in peace. So let's just say that Sara is surprised when she wakes up one morning and all of her drunken test emails are sent out to everyone she knows. Now, Sara has to deal with her past wounds, including her high school crush, who also happens to be the mentor that she has been assigned for her venture capital membership program. Confronted with many ghosts of her past, will Sara learn to forgive and move on, or will her past life come back to bite her in the butt?
My favorite thing about "One Last Word" is the fact that it shines a spotlight on women of color working in the tech industry. There is a bunch of sexism and racism in this industry, so seeing this issues addressed was great. Sara has snark for days and is willing to put those old white men in their place, which was both funny and stress-relieving. Seeing Sara come out of her shell and finally be able to speak up against some of these wrongs was both inspiring and uplifting to experience.
I also like how this book dealt with reconciling past grudges and wrong-doings. Sara had a falling out with her best friend, Naomi, never admitted to liking her crush, Harry, and has decades of unsaid resentments for her parents. When her "final" emails were sent out to these people, it forced Sara to encounter these complicated relationships and deal with them, rather than ignoring the fact that she no longer had healthy relationships with these people. It made me consider what I'd tell people if I'd only got to speak with them one last time and what truly makes up the essential part of human relationships.
The thing that really didn't work for me in this one is the fake dating elements and how lustful Sara is. For some reason, she ends up telling her high school crush, Harry, that she is currently seeing someone so she doesn't seem like a workaholic loser. This really didn't add much to the story and just felt like a way to put a prominent romance trope into the book. Especially because other elements of fake dating also appeared in this book, and they were much more casual than this large reference towards the beginning. I also couldn't get over the fact that Sara has been thirsting for this man for over a decade now. It was a bit bizarre and made some of their initial interactions really awkward.
Overall, I think that "One Last Word" explores some interesting topics such as women of color in the tech industry and having one last chance to talk to people in your life. However, I've seen both of these topics explored in more entertaining and original ways, so I found this book to be very mid-tier. I didn't hate it, but there were instances that made me feel uncomfortable and the romance wasn't exactly my cup of tea.
Sara Chae has created an app entitled One Last Word, which allows the user to send messages to anyone in their life after they are deceased. She meant for it to act as a means to get the things that one was never able to say during their lifetime off their chest so that they can rest in peace. So let's just say that Sara is surprised when she wakes up one morning and all of her drunken test emails are sent out to everyone she knows. Now, Sara has to deal with her past wounds, including her high school crush, who also happens to be the mentor that she has been assigned for her venture capital membership program. Confronted with many ghosts of her past, will Sara learn to forgive and move on, or will her past life come back to bite her in the butt?
My favorite thing about "One Last Word" is the fact that it shines a spotlight on women of color working in the tech industry. There is a bunch of sexism and racism in this industry, so seeing this issues addressed was great. Sara has snark for days and is willing to put those old white men in their place, which was both funny and stress-relieving. Seeing Sara come out of her shell and finally be able to speak up against some of these wrongs was both inspiring and uplifting to experience.
I also like how this book dealt with reconciling past grudges and wrong-doings. Sara had a falling out with her best friend, Naomi, never admitted to liking her crush, Harry, and has decades of unsaid resentments for her parents. When her "final" emails were sent out to these people, it forced Sara to encounter these complicated relationships and deal with them, rather than ignoring the fact that she no longer had healthy relationships with these people. It made me consider what I'd tell people if I'd only got to speak with them one last time and what truly makes up the essential part of human relationships.
The thing that really didn't work for me in this one is the fake dating elements and how lustful Sara is. For some reason, she ends up telling her high school crush, Harry, that she is currently seeing someone so she doesn't seem like a workaholic loser. This really didn't add much to the story and just felt like a way to put a prominent romance trope into the book. Especially because other elements of fake dating also appeared in this book, and they were much more casual than this large reference towards the beginning. I also couldn't get over the fact that Sara has been thirsting for this man for over a decade now. It was a bit bizarre and made some of their initial interactions really awkward.
Overall, I think that "One Last Word" explores some interesting topics such as women of color in the tech industry and having one last chance to talk to people in your life. However, I've seen both of these topics explored in more entertaining and original ways, so I found this book to be very mid-tier. I didn't hate it, but there were instances that made me feel uncomfortable and the romance wasn't exactly my cup of tea.