A review by nelemon
The Last Word by Taylor Adams

2.5

Well, I guess now I know Taylor Adam‘s books are not for me. No Exit is loved by basically everybody, and I didn’t care for that one either (although I really liked the movie), but this one had good reviews and sounded interesting, so I gave it a chance.

And I will admit, I read it super quickly, so it is definitely a page turner and very suspenseful. You don’t have to wait for the action either, about 15% in we’re already in survival mode. 

But too many situations and plot points were too conveniently unrealistic. I can definitely suspend my disbelief and just roll with a wild over the top thriller, but this didn’t work for me. The amount of twists 😂 It reminded me of Riley Sager‘s books, although I mostly enjoy those. I don’t know, it was just so chaotic and felt forced. The parts of the book that were written in draft novel form (“book within a book” style) didn’t really make sense in the end and to me just felt like a lazy way to alter the reader’s expectations. 

The main character has a tragic event that happened in her past that is not entirely revealed until the final chapters. That event turned out to be super dark and kind of triggering to be honest. But since this is part of a twist reveal, I guess warning about that particular trigger would be a spoiler. I’ll still mention it down below because it made me really sad. 

All in all, it’s an action packed survival thriller that definitely succeeds in regards to suspense and catching me off guard with some of the twists. But it also felt kind of forced and some of the situations were laughably convenient or wild. It was not for me. 



⚠️SPOILER⚠️



trigger warnings: death of an infant 
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