A review by kota19
The Last Word by Taylor Adams

1.0

Amazon has the audacity to ask her to rate the book. Out of five stars? One. She makes sure zero isn’t an option.

Giving a bad review to a book about someone who gets terrorized because she leaves a bad review on a book feels almost ironic? I think it would only really be ironic if the author came to my house and reenacted this book, but whatever.

Emma is housesitting in a secluded home, trying to read her way through everything cheap and free on the Kindle store when she reads an absolute dud of a book called Murder Mountain and leaves a scathing one-star review -- the only review the book has thus far -- and goes about her day. When she notices that the author replied asking her to remove her review, she gets petty and responds back refusing, an act Emma will come to regret when a masked maniac is spotted on the house's doorbell camera later.

For me, this book had a fun premise and a slow but promising start and while I can see why so many people liked it, it just didn't live up to the hype for me. Much of the start of the book centered on Emma struggling with her mental health and missing her husband -- it's incredibly vague whether or not he's dead, what happened to their relationship, and why she's so desperate to escape her thoughts into so many mediocre thrillers and slashers. While I normally love these vague hints at something horrible in the main character's life because it leaves me wondering and it adds a nice plot twist once their past is revealed, it was hard to care this time? To me, it felt like the book was very heavily hinting that her husband had gotten sick and died and

Spoiler

it was later revealed she had caused a car accident using her phone while driving and lost her baby, which was tragic, but felt like it kind of came out of nowhere with the buildup. If I had found Emma more likeable or if I was a parent, it would have hit harder, but for me it was just... Not it.

This book wavered pretty heavily between serious domestic thriller and almost being some kind of parody of what edgy horror bro authors are like. Everything was fairly serious and eerie, but it took me out of it when the author would randomly pop in and... Be himself.

And no offense, but you’re a female. I’m a nice guy, but I just have to shoot straight here on this—females generally don’t like action or horror. It’s just biology. Why are you even reviewing it?

*.*.*.*.*

“I mean, obviously I know breasts aren’t like sumo citruses. I have a lot of experience with breasts. That was a metaphor. ..."

I feel like if the author had chosen to go the dark comedy route, a la [b:Yellowface|59357120|Yellowface|R.F. Kuang|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1687082673l/59357120._SY75_.jpg|93525972], then the sections with the author wouldn't have been quite so cheesy because it would have been more obvious that he was supposed to be the joke, but when put in an otherwise pretty typical, creepy thriller, it felt like it was out of place and hard to take him at all seriously or feel like Emma had any reason to be so worried about him.

For the most part, the situations that Emma was in when she was trying desperately to outwit and escape the author were a little ridiculous. Again, this may have been on purpose and been the author trying to show the dark irony of Emma leaving a review calling the book unrealistic and absurd, only to find herself living out a similarly ridiculous situation to save her own life, but nothing about the author's writing revealed that it was supposed to be humorous or a parody. So, was the book an ironic take on bad writing or was this book just bad writing? It's hard to say because it seemed like both at once.

The twist was pretty obviously fairly quickly -- again, it felt like something that was supposed to be a funny take on the obvious twists in thrillers, but the author's writing didn't match that tone -- but the motivation was shaky at best and added to the disjointed feeling of a lot of the rest of the book.