Reviews with content warning for Drug use - The Last Party

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The Last Party by Clare Mackintosh

22 reviews

the_boozy_baking_bibliophile's review against another edition

3.25

Love Clare Mackintosh and this thriller/police procedural was great…once it really got started. It was slow to get into and there were a whole lot of characters to keep track of for the whole book. Once I was at least 50-75 pages in, I finally got more bought in but Ffion was hard to like for awhile. Overall though, it was good and I’m looking forward to her next installment of this series.

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hmstumfoll's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-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

4.0

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bookishchaos's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

It was a little slow in the beginning but speeds up in the middle. There's a lot of characters to remember but overall this was really good. I was NOT expecting the plot twist.

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yvo_about_books's review against another edition

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2.5

Finished reading: July 30th 2023

"One missing man. One body in the lake. We hardly need Miss Marple, do we?"

It's true that I've had mixed reactions to Clare Mackintosh's writing so far, but I absolutely loved my time with Hostage and I was hoping for a repeat experience with The Last Party. I was intrigued by the premise with the party, the lake setting and a murder mystery... And I fully expected to have a great time reading this first book of a new series. Unfortunately I ended up struggling considerably instead. I still like the premise and the setting is without doubt very well described. This story had so much potential, but in the end it just all fell flat for me. What didn't work then? First of all, The Last Party was both way too slow for me and also way overlong. This story could have been easily at least 100 pages shorter, and the plot would have been a lot tigher this way. As it is, there are way too many different characters/POVs and way too many descriptions along the way, and this made the story drag considerably. Add the fact that every single character is unlikeable and only becomes worse once you get to know them better, and I honestly couldn't care less what happened to any of them. The whole mystery around who killed Rhys didn't seem present at all; instead the focus was on just how many characters were hiding something. It was just overkill; so many characters cheating on each other, so many horrible secrets, so many 'revelations' stacked up that you just become immune to them all. This is without doubt my least favorite Clare Mackintosh book so far, and I will definitely not be continuing this series.

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whimsicalish's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book was a pleasant surprise. I judged it by the cover and expected a eye-roller. I did like the two main characters; they felt more human than other detectives in novels I have read. More vulnerable and able to work out their shit. There was a large cast, some better written than others. It can be confusing keeping track of everyone at first.

Generally, the heavy topics in the twists are taken with care. There's discussion instead of horrid things being shock value. The book does drag out the ending to give you twist after twist.

It seems like this will be a series. I'm not completely opposed to reading the next book. It's a maybe for me.

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