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A review by sleepydoe
Last Girls by Demetra Brodsky
5.0
4.5/5
A huge thanks to The Fantastic Flying Book Club for having me on the blog tour for this novel and providing me with an eARC! All the following opinions are my own!
Last Girls is a young adult mystery/thriller novel that was ONE HELL OF A SURPRISE, if I've ever had one! The story is told from the perspective of Honey Juniper, eldest of three, survivalist and kind of a badass. She makes beautiful paintings and writes letters to her childhood imaginary friend, Bucky. The other main cast of characters in this book are Birdie Juniper, annoyance and fiesty angst personified ; Blue Juniper, who is weirder than the rest which is saying something, and the closest thing to a real life Luna Lovegood I've ever seen. We also have Remy Lamar who just doesn't give up trying to get Honey to go out with him. And Toby Ellis…who's connected to all of this but he doesn't even know that he is.
When the story takes off, it reads like a book about a bunch of doomsday preppers with their bunkers and farms and shooting ranges (shudder), but the plot takes off almost immediately when a secret mission issued by the leader of the compound goes awry and people get in trouble etc. I don't want to give much away because this book is a WILD RIDE, and going into it knowing as little as possible was honestly one of the best things I've ever done!
Everything about this book was super fun and engaging. I absolutely adored the main characters - Blue, especially, who seems to have some kind of psychic ability obtained due to government experiments etc that read very much like Eleven's story from Stranger Things and honestly, where is my spin off? I need it right now! I WANT TO SEE BLUE HURL SOME TRUCKS AT BAD GUYS, DAMMIT! The plot went at a steady and fast pace and it was unputdownable through a lot of the action. I did find the extent to which the plot exploded in, like, the last 20% a bit extreme, but I was so invested at that point that I totally bought that shit.
I loved what the author tried to say with this book, too. While there were a lot of mixed messages (or so they seemed to me atleast) about being sheeple and the end of the world as we know it etc, there was also this pure emotion and love for all things art underneath it. The Mother of the girls doesn't approve of them being artists because she doesn't believe that it's anything useful in a doomsday scenario, but the girls still keep at it and that's kind of what ultimately saves their lives in ways more than one. And that was such a sweet thing to see, imo.
There were also a lot of small, charming elements that I adored. All the abbreviations, Blue's crazy ass predictions, Bash and Stavros and that whole bit. The few descriptions of art and photography. The slight peppering of romance. The fun sister banter. Also, there were some pretty obvious jabs at Trump peppered through the text, and honestly, I'm not even mad because nothing that was said about that orange meme was a lie so *shrug*.
All in all, this was an extremely enjoyable read and I would totally recommend you pick this up even if survival books AREN'T for you! They aren't usually for me either, but I COULD NOT PUT THIS DOWN! :D
A huge thanks to The Fantastic Flying Book Club for having me on the blog tour for this novel and providing me with an eARC! All the following opinions are my own!
Last Girls is a young adult mystery/thriller novel that was ONE HELL OF A SURPRISE, if I've ever had one! The story is told from the perspective of Honey Juniper, eldest of three, survivalist and kind of a badass. She makes beautiful paintings and writes letters to her childhood imaginary friend, Bucky. The other main cast of characters in this book are Birdie Juniper, annoyance and fiesty angst personified ; Blue Juniper, who is weirder than the rest which is saying something, and the closest thing to a real life Luna Lovegood I've ever seen. We also have Remy Lamar who just doesn't give up trying to get Honey to go out with him. And Toby Ellis…who's connected to all of this but he doesn't even know that he is.
When the story takes off, it reads like a book about a bunch of doomsday preppers with their bunkers and farms and shooting ranges (shudder), but the plot takes off almost immediately when a secret mission issued by the leader of the compound goes awry and people get in trouble etc. I don't want to give much away because this book is a WILD RIDE, and going into it knowing as little as possible was honestly one of the best things I've ever done!
Everything about this book was super fun and engaging. I absolutely adored the main characters - Blue, especially, who seems to have some kind of psychic ability obtained due to government experiments etc that read very much like Eleven's story from Stranger Things and honestly, where is my spin off? I need it right now! I WANT TO SEE BLUE HURL SOME TRUCKS AT BAD GUYS, DAMMIT! The plot went at a steady and fast pace and it was unputdownable through a lot of the action. I did find the extent to which the plot exploded in, like, the last 20% a bit extreme, but I was so invested at that point that I totally bought that shit.
I loved what the author tried to say with this book, too. While there were a lot of mixed messages (or so they seemed to me atleast) about being sheeple and the end of the world as we know it etc, there was also this pure emotion and love for all things art underneath it. The Mother of the girls doesn't approve of them being artists because she doesn't believe that it's anything useful in a doomsday scenario, but the girls still keep at it and that's kind of what ultimately saves their lives in ways more than one. And that was such a sweet thing to see, imo.
There were also a lot of small, charming elements that I adored. All the abbreviations, Blue's crazy ass predictions, Bash and Stavros and that whole bit. The few descriptions of art and photography. The slight peppering of romance. The fun sister banter. Also, there were some pretty obvious jabs at Trump peppered through the text, and honestly, I'm not even mad because nothing that was said about that orange meme was a lie so *shrug*.
All in all, this was an extremely enjoyable read and I would totally recommend you pick this up even if survival books AREN'T for you! They aren't usually for me either, but I COULD NOT PUT THIS DOWN! :D