The Last

Our Review

The Last by Hanna Jameson is a book to take your time with. There are many different elements to the story and although it is very suspenseful it might not be for everyone because it is not fast-paced. However, saying that, I enjoyed reading it.

Jon was on a conference in Switzerland when the world ended. Washington was hit first, then London and various other places around the world.

Jon is stranded at L’Hotel Sixieme in the middle of nowhere. He feels guilty because he didn’t reply to his wife Nadia’s message before it all happened and now, he may never get the chance to speak to her again.

Jon and the others have to learn to live with each and attempt the daily business of surviving with a bunch of people who are basically strangers.

Then a body of a young girl is found in one of the water towers on the roof and Jon realises that there may be a killer among them and decides to investigate.

 Who can he trust? And how far will he go in his quest to find the killer?

The Last begins on the third day after the nuclear bombs have been dropped. The narrator, Jon, is thinking about something his wife Nadia once said:

“Nadia once told me that she was kept awake at night by the idea that she would read about the end of the world on a phone notification. It wasn’t exactly Kennedy’s Sword of Damocles speech, but I remember that moment word for word.

For me, three days ago, it happened over a complimentary breakfast.”

Jon decides early on that someone needs to keep a record of what happened after the bombs fell which is why he has begun to document everything that is happening. However, the reader is made aware early on in the novel that he may not be the most reliable narrator.

He writes an entry for day 6 and then writes a second entry for the same day because he knows he hasn’t been entirely truthful.

“That was a lie, what I wrote before. I wanted to come to the convention. I was glad of the time away from Nadia and from my children.”

Jon fluctuates between feeling lucky that he survived as illustrated bellow:

“Maybe I was lucky, watching the end of the world online, instead of living it, reacting to an explosion or a siren announcing one.

We’re not gone yet.”

Other days though he doesn’t feel so pleased at his situation:

“Is this it? I mean for humanity. Am I the last person alive making notes on the end of the world? I’m not sure if I would rather already be dead.”

I liked that it isn’t clear who prompted the start of the nuclear attack, but the implication is that it was the trigger-happy president of the United States.

“Well, it was you guys that fucked everything up, she said, deadpan, as if this was my punishment. We were fine here in Europe. We were just praying you guys wouldn’t do anything stupid. Well, to be fair; the whole world was pretty stupid. We just hoped it wouldn’t be end of the world stupid.”

Among my favourite thing about The Last was the way the history of the hotel echoed those rumoured to have happened at The Cecil hotel including a body in the water tank. If you haven’t heard of it look it up as it is an interesting case.

The Last reminded me of a grown-up version of Lord of the Flies because of the relatively short amount of time it took for civilisation to disintegrate. One of the first ways this was illustrated was in the way most people were seemingly uninterested in who murdered the little girl.

The dystopian genre is one of my favourites so it could have quite easily been a disappointment but The Last is able to compete with the best of the genre.

Our Final Rating...

Mon, 21st January 2019