Scan barcode
A review by atomic_tourist
Last Exit by Max Gladstone
Last Exit was way too sentimental for me, and about 200 pages too long for my taste. Plus it was so incoherent that I don't even know what I just read... I'm left with a long list of qualms and questions... If the main characters wanted to get to the crossroads and the crossroads are in Elsinore, why did they meet at a Best Western in Montana? It feels like a lame excuse to add unnecessary length to the book. Also, the sci-fi world-building was lackluster. The premise was so weak; how can you just say "the math adds up" or "the physics adds up"?! Like many other sci-fi readers, I have a science background; you cannot write a book for this audience and unironically explain the idea of an alternate universe by having characters talk about "I ran the numbers and it works." Like... the engineer in me has so many questions! I could not suspend my disbelief and never got into the premise. It didn't help that the world-building in each alt was also paltry as hell. The characters just went from place to place... the reader did not get a chance to explore the literal alternate universe we were in!
The villains were also boring and tacky... I get that the cowboy and the rot are perhaps weird & surreal ~on purpose~ but it got to the point where I struggled not to roll my eyes. The cowboy calling Ish "daddy" literally every time he spoke?! Come on! And we never actually dig in to explore the reason the characters all gave up everything to hunt the rot 10 years ago. Like, how did they explain to their families that they can't pay off their student debt because they're too busy road tripping, lol? Or why they thought getting to the crossroads would do anything? Or why the crossroads was located in Elsinore? Or the Medicine Wheel and what was up with that...? It was all so fucking incoherent! It made no sense! And while ambiguity in fiction is great, this book wasn't ambiguous, it was just incoherent. In fact, even though the plot made zero fucking sense, the morals presented in Last Exit are far from being ambiguous, and are actually insanely didactic... Maybe I'm just a bitter hag, idk, but I cannot deal with the sappy storylines and the weird proverbs. Just in the middle of a random paragraph, stuff like "love is honesty"... What?! What does that even mean?! People lie to their loved ones all the time. (Reading phrases like this, I thought of the advice every high school student hears in their composition class-- "show, don't tell." Because why are you telling me that love is honesty?? And how is that fucking relevant?)
I know this review makes zero sense but listen, I had to get this off my chest. This was a long book and I had a busy week, so I spent more than 7 days on it! Maybe I should learn to dnf, haha.
The villains were also boring and tacky... I get that the cowboy and the rot are perhaps weird & surreal ~on purpose~ but it got to the point where I struggled not to roll my eyes. The cowboy calling Ish "daddy" literally every time he spoke?! Come on! And we never actually dig in to explore the reason the characters all gave up everything to hunt the rot 10 years ago. Like, how did they explain to their families that they can't pay off their student debt because they're too busy road tripping, lol? Or why they thought getting to the crossroads would do anything? Or why the crossroads was located in Elsinore? Or the Medicine Wheel and what was up with that...? It was all so fucking incoherent! It made no sense! And while ambiguity in fiction is great, this book wasn't ambiguous, it was just incoherent. In fact, even though the plot made zero fucking sense, the morals presented in Last Exit are far from being ambiguous, and are actually insanely didactic... Maybe I'm just a bitter hag, idk, but I cannot deal with the sappy storylines and the weird proverbs. Just in the middle of a random paragraph, stuff like "love is honesty"... What?! What does that even mean?! People lie to their loved ones all the time. (Reading phrases like this, I thought of the advice every high school student hears in their composition class-- "show, don't tell." Because why are you telling me that love is honesty?? And how is that fucking relevant?)
I know this review makes zero sense but listen, I had to get this off my chest. This was a long book and I had a busy week, so I spent more than 7 days on it! Maybe I should learn to dnf, haha.